Today is the last day of Globe’s CelebRATE Promo where you can call and text Singtel subscribers at rates as if they were on the Globe network.

I learned about this promo by accident and quite fortunate at that. A friend of mine who’s based in Singapore went home (to the Philippines) for the holidays and had his Singtel phone on roaming here instead of getting a temporary prepaid account. We exchanged several texts (holiday greetings and plannings for meeting up) and I was worried that I was paying 10 pesos for every SMS.

When I got my bill for January, I was surprised to see that I ended up paying one peso per text, tax included. On the bill was written “CelebRATE Singtel.” So I thought that the reduced fees were because of one of three things. First, I thought that since my friend is on roaming here on the Globe network, then I’m just paying local charges, which is somewhat ridiculous on an economic level (but logical on a technical level).

Second, I thought that since Singtel is a major stockholder of Globe Telecoms, that maybe there is an temporally-indefinite internetwork special agreement beneficial to subscribers of both networks.

The third reason, which is the correct one, is that Globe and Singtel had a holiday promo. Until January 31, 2006, Globe pre- and post-paid subscribers can call and text Singtel subscribers at $0.13/min and PhP1/SMS respectively. Singtel subscribers can also do the same to Globe users at similar rates: S$0.22/min and S$0.05/SMS.

It was good while it lasted. At least I didn’t end up paying 170 pesos for the 17 text messages I sent to my friend.