Sunday, October 19, 2008
02:02 by FoxTwo
Image by sean dreilinger via Flickr With recent announcements of price increases from Singtel on their fixed line subscriptions, I just had to stop and review the situation. Now, adding 0.1 cent per 30 secs (or 60 secs off peak) is a very very small amount. Tiny, in fact. In total it's just $10 per year, the price of one pack of cigarettes.
Being the lazy-assed bum that I am, I was going to just "leave it alone". It's just $10 more.
However, my recent mobile bills have been climbing too. Part of the increase is due to work. The other part, a more major part, is due to personal stuff. It is also fortunate that I am currently contract-less in the mobile department - I can "jump ship" anytime I wanted to. My contract ran out in May actually, and the only reason I stayed with Singtel is because I've been such a loyal and faithful customer since the 80's (OMG is it 20 years already?!)
Also, suddenly work requirements stipulated that I need to enter several sensitive (and hence, "high security") areas on a frequent basis, and hence phones with cameras are disallowed. Now, I personally think that this is a stupid rule. If I truly had bad intentions, I'd have no problems sketching out whatever I need using a pen and some paper. Having a camera just makes it more convenient to plan dastardly deeds, that's all. Disallowing cameras just makes it a tad harder, but not prevent it.
In any case, my first thoughts are - how many modern phones today come without a camera? A quick search through CNet showed only a handful. Choices are truly limited. Personally I don't mind a phone without a camera. What I do mind is that I can't get the phone(s) I really want because they come with a camera. Phone manufacturers should really make more camera-free versions of their phones!
Also, my Sony Ericsson phone has just decided to introduce me to yet another hidden feature - auto-poweroff-at-random-times. Yeah, in my opinion, Sony Ericsson stuff suck really bad. And, I don't mean just their phones.
So, this really provided me the push I needed to evaluate my position with Singtel. Since I needed a new, non-camera-enabled phone, that would mean signing a contract with a provider just to get the phone I am limited to, for free or almost free.
After reviewing my choices, M1 seemed to have the best combination of perks vs price. Starhub was a close second. The only thing Singtel got going was that I'd get the phone free if I signed a contract with them. The thing that made me consider Starhub over M1 was simple - price. While I may need to pay an amount for the phone (under $50), I'll get something like 30% discount off my bill because once I subscribe to Starhub, I automatically become a "Hubber" since my Cable TV and Internet connection are all under Starhub. Besides, my work areas are usually in town anyway, so Starhub's rumoured "sucky coverage" in Jurong is irrelevent to me.
With full Number Portability, there isn't really much incentive to stick with Singtel. Nobody needed to be informed of my "new number" since it'll still be the same. The second thing is that Starhub has a dataplan that is cheaper than Singtel's, meaning it has an "in-between" plan that Singtel doesn't. I'm not a lite user (10MB?! Who the hell surfs as little as 20 web pages in a month?), but I'm not always on the mobile broadband to require a 50GB limit a month and a speed of 1 or 2 or even 3Mbps. Yeah Singtel's plans only go up to 3mbps.
Starhub's "in-between" plan which I am currently on, called the "MaxMobile Value", has no speed limits. It'll go as fast as your phone is capable of (and on my new NOKIA camera-less phone, that's 7.2mbps if I am hooked onto a 3.5G GPRS connection). Although the "free bundled data" is just $30 (or 10MB) worth, the subscription is only $5. Besides, even if I do exceed the "free bundled data", the plan caps it all at about $36. Yes, even if I do exceed like crazy, like maybe downloading stuff or whatever and using up 200GB, they'll just bill me for $36. Yes I confirmed this with Starhub, both on the hotline as well as in person at the counter when I was signing up a new line with them.
As a clarification, the MaxMobile Surflite plan may be "unlimited", but it's a constant $38 a month. Plus, according to them, you can't have it on your phone. You need to get a USB device. The helpdesk has no answers to this, because I told them technically this was POSSIBLE since it's also using the GPRS network. All they can say is that company policy requires the subscriber to pick up a USB device and it won't be activated on a phone. So if you want an unlimited plan on a phone, you need to get the MaxMobile Ultimate which will set you back $72 a month.
Since I needed it on the phone, I dropped one level down to the MaxMobile Value plan. Besides, even if I exceed the provided 10MB "free data" like crazy it's still capped at $36. That's still $2 cheaper :) That's like having an unlimited data plan for $36 instead of $38. This plan also means that I don't pay $36 every month, because the amount is variable depending on whether I exceed by a lot or very little.
With all these "plus" factors, Starhub gets my money. And I got a new Nokia phone off them too. Yeah, no more Sony Ericssons for me! Oh yeah, I am also swapping my Singtel fixed line phone over to Starhub's Digital Voice. Now, I am completely Singtel-free!
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02:02 by FoxTwo
Starhub Gets My Money, Goodbye Singtel!
Image by sean dreilinger via Flickr With recent announcements of price increases from Singtel on their fixed line subscriptions, I just had to stop and review the situation. Now, adding 0.1 cent per 30 secs (or 60 secs off peak) is a very very small amount. Tiny, in fact. In total it's just $10 per year, the price of one pack of cigarettes.Being the lazy-assed bum that I am, I was going to just "leave it alone". It's just $10 more.
However, my recent mobile bills have been climbing too. Part of the increase is due to work. The other part, a more major part, is due to personal stuff. It is also fortunate that I am currently contract-less in the mobile department - I can "jump ship" anytime I wanted to. My contract ran out in May actually, and the only reason I stayed with Singtel is because I've been such a loyal and faithful customer since the 80's (OMG is it 20 years already?!)
Also, suddenly work requirements stipulated that I need to enter several sensitive (and hence, "high security") areas on a frequent basis, and hence phones with cameras are disallowed. Now, I personally think that this is a stupid rule. If I truly had bad intentions, I'd have no problems sketching out whatever I need using a pen and some paper. Having a camera just makes it more convenient to plan dastardly deeds, that's all. Disallowing cameras just makes it a tad harder, but not prevent it.
In any case, my first thoughts are - how many modern phones today come without a camera? A quick search through CNet showed only a handful. Choices are truly limited. Personally I don't mind a phone without a camera. What I do mind is that I can't get the phone(s) I really want because they come with a camera. Phone manufacturers should really make more camera-free versions of their phones!
Also, my Sony Ericsson phone has just decided to introduce me to yet another hidden feature - auto-poweroff-at-random-times. Yeah, in my opinion, Sony Ericsson stuff suck really bad. And, I don't mean just their phones.
So, this really provided me the push I needed to evaluate my position with Singtel. Since I needed a new, non-camera-enabled phone, that would mean signing a contract with a provider just to get the phone I am limited to, for free or almost free.
After reviewing my choices, M1 seemed to have the best combination of perks vs price. Starhub was a close second. The only thing Singtel got going was that I'd get the phone free if I signed a contract with them. The thing that made me consider Starhub over M1 was simple - price. While I may need to pay an amount for the phone (under $50), I'll get something like 30% discount off my bill because once I subscribe to Starhub, I automatically become a "Hubber" since my Cable TV and Internet connection are all under Starhub. Besides, my work areas are usually in town anyway, so Starhub's rumoured "sucky coverage" in Jurong is irrelevent to me.
With full Number Portability, there isn't really much incentive to stick with Singtel. Nobody needed to be informed of my "new number" since it'll still be the same. The second thing is that Starhub has a dataplan that is cheaper than Singtel's, meaning it has an "in-between" plan that Singtel doesn't. I'm not a lite user (10MB?! Who the hell surfs as little as 20 web pages in a month?), but I'm not always on the mobile broadband to require a 50GB limit a month and a speed of 1 or 2 or even 3Mbps. Yeah Singtel's plans only go up to 3mbps.
Starhub's "in-between" plan which I am currently on, called the "MaxMobile Value", has no speed limits. It'll go as fast as your phone is capable of (and on my new NOKIA camera-less phone, that's 7.2mbps if I am hooked onto a 3.5G GPRS connection). Although the "free bundled data" is just $30 (or 10MB) worth, the subscription is only $5. Besides, even if I do exceed the "free bundled data", the plan caps it all at about $36. Yes, even if I do exceed like crazy, like maybe downloading stuff or whatever and using up 200GB, they'll just bill me for $36. Yes I confirmed this with Starhub, both on the hotline as well as in person at the counter when I was signing up a new line with them.
As a clarification, the MaxMobile Surflite plan may be "unlimited", but it's a constant $38 a month. Plus, according to them, you can't have it on your phone. You need to get a USB device. The helpdesk has no answers to this, because I told them technically this was POSSIBLE since it's also using the GPRS network. All they can say is that company policy requires the subscriber to pick up a USB device and it won't be activated on a phone. So if you want an unlimited plan on a phone, you need to get the MaxMobile Ultimate which will set you back $72 a month.
Since I needed it on the phone, I dropped one level down to the MaxMobile Value plan. Besides, even if I exceed the provided 10MB "free data" like crazy it's still capped at $36. That's still $2 cheaper :) That's like having an unlimited data plan for $36 instead of $38. This plan also means that I don't pay $36 every month, because the amount is variable depending on whether I exceed by a lot or very little.
With all these "plus" factors, Starhub gets my money. And I got a new Nokia phone off them too. Yeah, no more Sony Ericssons for me! Oh yeah, I am also swapping my Singtel fixed line phone over to Starhub's Digital Voice. Now, I am completely Singtel-free!
Labels: mobile phones, self
