PCEV is 99.5%-owned by Smart Communications, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT).

109 was implemented, thus, Piltel had to expand its landline services to unserved and underserved areas in southern and western Mindanao.

This, together with rising inflation, the cost of upgrades and expansion, loss of wireless subscriber confidence because of the cloning problem in the previous year, and lack of subscriber interest in the newly installed Mindanao landline network because of the financial crisis; started to weigh heavily on the finances of Piltel.

Before Piltel had the chance to add SMS facilities to its CDMA network, it was already deep into the red with Php4.1 billion worth of losses as of end-1998.

As of July 29, 2009, Smart Communications completed its tender offer to buy out most of Piltel's other minority shareholders, thereby raising its ownership to 99.5%.

[4] On May 25, 2010, Piltel renamed to its current name after the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) approved the change in its corporate name, as well as other amendments to the Company's Articles of Incorporation.

[7] Piltel's main competitors were Smart Communications, Globe Telecom, Dito Telecommunity and formerly, Sun Cellular in the mobile market.