13:27 by FoxTwo
Are Your Mobile Phone Bills Killing You?
Well as far as I'm concerned, they almost were. Lately my talk times have increased almost 100%. My usual mobile phone plan comes with 300 mins and costs $48.15 a month. However, recently I have been clocking as high as 700 mins a month. For every 60 mins over the "free" bundled minutes, I pay almost $10 (16 cents a min x 60 mins). So, you can roughly guess how much my phone bills were.
Now you might be thinking, 300 mins (which is 5 hours) of talk time should be enough. Not really. If you actually calculate, it means you can only talk for 10 mins a day, for 30 days, before all your minutes are used up. A few months ago, 300 mins was enough for me. Recently though, 300 mins barely lasts me 2 weeks.
Luckily, since I recently got a new mobile phone, the Nokia E51, it is touted as a VOIP-enabled phone. As such I started exploring possibilities that I can leverage VOIP on the phone to cut my costs down.
My current problem is simple - I do not have enough "minutes" in my mobile plan, and I don't want to go up to the next higher plan as that would mean I spend $82 a month instead of $48.15. That's almost $30 more a month, every month.
After hunting around a while, I came upon 2 very potential solutions. One is by Skype, and the other by pfingo (incidentally, pfingo is not a "new startup". It's actually Starhub).
Skype has a subscription mode that seems very suitable to me. I pay US$5.95 (approx S$9) a month, and I get to call a selected country for "free". The word "free" is quoted because the small print says "up to 10,000 mins". They did not give any specifics, so I'm naturally wary. The "selected country" for me of course, is Singapore. Luckily too, that Singapore is in their list of being able to call both MOBILE and LANDLINES for free. This subscription has no "fixed" period. You can subscribe for as little as 1 month, or let Skype continue to charge your credit card every month if you choose to stay with them.
pfingo's offering is slightly different. First off, if you subscribe to pfingo, not only can you call Singapore numbers free (both mobile and landlines), you also get your very own number, free too! In other words, should you use pfingo to call your friend, he/she will see your new pfingo number on his phone instead of "withheld" or "private number". This is of some influence in my decision, as I know some of my friends will refuse outright to pickup any incoming calls that are "withheld" or "private numbers". Why? Because most of the time, these numbers are telemarketers calling to sell you something.
The downside to pfingo's offerings is the higher price per-month ($13 compared to approx $9 for Skype), as well as the minimum period to subscribe is 3 months. Thus, if you are not too sure, like I was, you can't just "try them out" for 1 month. However, if you try them via the usual way - buying $10 of credits and calling out first and deciding if they are good enough, then once you subscribe to pfingo for 3, 6 or 12 months, you can literally have the peace of mind that:
- You can call out to Singapore numbers for free for the next 3, 6 or 12 months
- You have a number appearing on the other side so that people can actually see who's calling.
- If your friend didn't answer your call, ie a missed call, he can actually call you back on that number!
Needless to say, both have solutions for mobile phones too, so that you can use either GPRS or Wifi to make VOIP calls.
Currently I am trying out Skype for a month. I did activate a Caller ID with Skype too, but it doesn't seem to work. Opening a support ticket elicited no response. With pfingo's offering so tempting, it is very tempting to switch over to pfingo.
In a sense it's a lot more convenient for me using VOIP phones since I do not have a desk phone, and if I want to make calls out to vendors I would need to use my mobile phone. Now that I have Skype on my laptop, it's like having a phone with me too! Oh yes, my laptop easily connects with my bluetooh earpiece for my mobile phone, so there's no need to have any extra "headsets".
Conclusion:
$48.15 a month for mobile plan
$9 for Skype's subscription
Total = $57 a month for almost unlimited talktime.
Of course if you have a cheaper mobile plan than mine (ie those with 100 mins), then your costs are lowered significantly too.
You should consider VOIP to supplement your mobile plans, if you have a modern enough phone. You should seriously consider VOIP especially when your phone has WLAN capabilities ("wifi").
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13:47 by FoxTwo
Image via WikipediaThe recent price increase by Singtel on landlines sparked off a wave of protest around my friends, and many bloggers. On the surface, if you look at it, the increase isn't really that much. Only 0.01 cent more per minute, and a total of $10 more per YEAR.And yet, people protest and grumble.
I think, the problem isn't the amount of the increase. It's that everything has been increasing and yet we see no improvements. As a matter of fact, bus fare, MRT fares, and taxi fare increases have not done a thing to help us - MRTs are still packed like sardines, and we pay to be packed like sardines. Bus fare increases only help to put stupid TVMobile boxes into the buses, which do nothing to "entertain us" while we are in a "standing-room-only" packed bus.
The Singtel price increase is probably the proverbial straw that broke the camel's back.
Nowadays, almost everyone has some sort of broadband connection at home. It's high time we take note of VOIP technology (Voice Over Internet Protocol) and use it as a telephone. VOIP is not exactly a new technology. It has been around for at least 10 years if not more. Back then, the major application for VOIP technology was games. No seriously, it was used for games! Picture this - you're frantically fighting off a horde of monsters. Is it faster to shout "HELP!" or to click the screen, bring up the chat box, and then type HELP (in the meantime the monsters would still be pummeling you)? Even then, would your friends be looking at the chatbox on the screen, or would they also be busy fending off the monsters?
Over the years, VOIP grew from a game-only application into what it is today - ready for mainstream. As an illustration, Starhub already offers it as a commercial product - their Digital Voice products. Yes, Starhub leverages on the cables which they have already laid into your HDB homes meant for their internet and cable TV services to carry voice as well.
Why VOIP?
Because, it's dirt-cheap. You already have an internet connection. You're already paying for it. If you use VOIP to call someone also using VOIP from the same service provider, it is almost guaranteed that the call will be free. Another illustration - on MSN, call your buddy and TALK to him with a mic. That conversation is free. Yes, you hear voice. Yes you can see video (if you both have webcams). Yet, that session is free.
VOIP comes into its own when it comes to calling your friends and loved ones who are in a different country. If you actually sat down and compared IDD rates with VOIP global calling rates, the VOIP rates would typically be at least 40% to 70% cheaper! Seriously. About a year or so ago, I called a friend up in Hong Kong and had a 1 hour 30 minute conversation with her. The price? S$2.00.
No you didn't read that wrong. It cost me US$1.80 for a 90 minute call (2 cents a minute). US$1.80 is about S$2.00 or so. If you think about it, it was cheaper to call overseas at 2 cents a minute, for 90 minutes, than to call your buddy in Singapore up on the mobile phone (16 cents a minute) and talk to him for 15 minutes!
If you are worried about the "call quality", and whether there will be "drop outs" etc, you can rest easy. My overseas friends whom I have called, keep telling me I sounded so clear, it was just like standing next to them. Well it's actually not that surprising since the microphones you own/have is probably better than those on the phones.
Skype is a popular and well-known VOIP provider. Many people I know also have skype accounts. Even the company I work in now encourages Skype usage if you are not physically in the company network. In the company itself, the entire PABX system is all VOIP. To dial anybody up in the world, all you need is just a 5 digit number - first digit represents country, the other 4 digits for the extension. The "overseas call" is thus, free too. Why? Because we are using the company internal network, which is already laid for the LAN and WAN networks for the computers.
With costs so low and dirt cheap, it is little wonder VOIP isn't very well known outside of the IT industry. Telephone companies such as Singtel will definitely not want to lose their "golden goose". Without the masses paying for their high rates (16 cents a minute for mobile calls, 0.16 cents a min for landline calls), they'd lose a huge chunk of their revenue.
Some VOIP services like Gizmo and pfingo even have mobile clients ("software for your phone") that allows you to use your phone to call overseas using their cheap rates, as long as you have an Internet connection. Modern phones probably come with wifi as one of the connectivity options and thus you can just use your phone and "log in" to your own home wireless network, and call using VOIP.
Alternatively, you can subscribe to mobile broadband plans which are definitely cheaper than mobile phone plans. For about $22 a month you can get mobile broadband services on your phone with 50GB of bundled free transfers. 50GB is definitely more than enough for you to make VOIP calls. As an illustration, a typical user only consumes 20GB to 30GBs a month even if he watches youtube videos regularly
So, effectively, you can downgrade your mobile phone plan to the cheapest one available and get mobile broadband to use cheaper call rates (2 cents a min to call any number in Singapore).
If you use the pfingo service, they even have a callback function! Simply go to the internet on any computer, phone or PDA, key in a callback number for you (home or mobile phone), then the destination number. Your phone will ring, a message will tell you to hold, and soon your friend (overseas or local) will be on the other end. So you don't even have to be "on the internet" to use their VOIP service!
In a similar vein, Skype offers an "unlimited country call". Meaning for about S$8 a month you can call any number in Singapore (or your choice of country) free. Downside of course, is that you have to use the Skype client on the desktop or mobile phone, or own a skype-fone. If you go for the Global option, you pay about S$18.00 a month and call Singapore plus 35 other countries FOR FREE.
Now if this blog post hasn't spurred you on to at least do some research into the VOIP technology and how it may be able to help you save some money, nothing else will :)
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12:51 by FoxTwo Look out world! There's a new VOIP platform on the block - Gizmo Project.
Skype used to be number 1. Well technically it still is number 1, but I am predicting (I could be wrong) that Gizmo will overtake Skype soon. For one thing, it's cheaper to make outgoing calls to landline phones with Gizmo than with Skype. Thirdly, you get a SIP number when you sign up with Gizmo. SIP numbers are "Internet Telephone Numbers". You don't really have to have Gizmo to call a Gizmo user. You can use any other SIP provider/software to call too! So, you can use something like Pulver's Communicator to call a Gizmo user as long as you use the SIP number. Or, if you already have an account with a VOIP service provider, such as Vonage (in the US), you can use your SIP Phone (which COULD be a real telephone device that is plugged into the Internet) and call a Gizmo user (like me) using the SIP number and we can talk.
Secondly, when you sign up with Gizmo, you automatically get 25 cents (US dollars) credited into your account so you can start making calls out to landline phones. Now, how far does 25 cents go? Well, it's enough to make about an 8 minute-call to anyone else in Singapore. That includes mobile phones!
I have been skimming the Gizmo forum pages, and apparently, some people are saying that the call quality is better with Gizmo than with Skype. One of them says that he used to have "dropouts" with Skype but he doesn't get it with Gizmo. That sounds to me like Gizmo is technically more sound "under the hood" than Skype.
So, how can you go wrong with Gizmo? Well now that I have a SIP number I'm gonna leave Gizmo up all the time now, and start handing out my SIP number! I wonder how they can fit that into my name card at work? hah! We'll find out soon if everyone starts using Internet Phones.
Looking back at the history of Internet Phones, I am just blown away by how far we have come. From the early beginnings in the late 1990's, we had stuff like Vocaltec's Internet Phone, which was software-only, and you can only call other people using the Vocaltec product. Same goes for any other competitor back then - Intel Internet Phonie, Itelco's Internet Phone, etc etc. There was a period of time where Mediaring was damn popular in Singapore. Mediaring is still around, but they have branched out into the VOIP business today.
Then of course, there are those gaming voice software like Teamspeak, Ventrilo and Roger Wilco. I am constantly using Teamspeak when on raids in Everquest 2. You kind of "take it for granted" once you use it often enough. For the man in the street, being able to talk through your computer is still an amazing achievement to him. I know, because recently at the pub I regularly go to every week, I was just talking to the girl behind the bar and she was just asking me about some computer stuff (man it never changes. Every time I tell them I'm a computer geek I end up having to "solve" their computer problems at home) and I was just telling her that it is possible to just call her on the computer and we can talk while walking her through the problem solving steps, and she can save money on the mobile phone charges if we do it that way.
Her eyes went wide with amazement, and I realised that Internet Telephony is still a new concept to the layman. A few regular patrons who were near us overheard us and they too, were surprised that the computer can be used as a telephone. I had to politely point out that the Treo650 that one of them was using was a small computer and that the phone was "tacked on" to it. A Treo650 is actually a Palm unit, and a Palm is a small computer. It can do everything you can do on a real computer. Check out my Palm pages to read more.
So all you guys using things like the O2 or the XDA, yeah those are computers too, but you think of them as mobile phones. They are essentially COMPUTERS WITH PHONES tacked on to them.
Cool huh?
