Singapore’s BEST 3G broadband for mobile phone Plan (Nov 08) - M1 V2Mbps

It has been 5 months since I put up the inaugural blog on Singapore BEST 3G broadband for mobile plan. Things just got better and cheaper with new alternatives plan launched.

Before we begin to review the latest offers, let’s not forget about the presumptions we have for the comparisons. I summarise them as follows:

1) We aim to identify the BEST VALUE plan - broadband for mobile phone (not mobile device or notebook).

2) Monthly data transfer is between 50MB – 50GB. Those plan not included in this review are purely rip off plans to slaughter so-called causal or low-end users.

3) Typical broadband mobile access speed of 3G and 3.5G phone are limited to 384 kbps and 3 Mbps (max) respectively.

4) Plan must support data and voice in the SAME sim card.

5) We are focusing on ONE (1) SIM card for voice and data to explore the full functionalities of 3G/3.5G mobile phone.

If you have doubts on above, please revisit earlier blog on the details.

The filtered results are presented below:

Telco	Starhub		M1 Broadband			Singtel
Broadband Plan	Value	Ultimate	V 2Mbps	V 4Mbps	V 7.2Mbps	1000	2000	3600	7200
Free Data (GB)	0.9MB	Unlimited				30	50	50	50
Excess Charges (S$)	0.32/KB	NA				0.001/2KB
Download Speed (Mbps)	2	7.2	2	4	7.2	1	2	3.6	7.2
Upload Speed (Mbps)	0.5	1.9	0.5	1	2	0.375	0.5	1	1.5
Incoming calls	Need to bundle with voice service.		FREE			Need to bundle with voice service.
Outgoing calls (S$/min)			0.08
Monthly bill w/GST (S$)	5.35 Capped at 36.38 for unlimited use	72.76@ 36.38^	38.72@ 27.10	51.36@ 35.95	69.30@ 48.51	22.42@ 17.94#	34.85@ 20.91#	62.37@ 37.42#	72.76@ 43.66#
Target Segment	BUDGET	HIGH	BUDGET	MID	HIGH	BUDGET	BUDGET	MID	HIGH
FIRST ROUND WINNERS			X	X	X	X	X

Legends: @ - Standard price, # - Christmas promotion, ^ - for MaxOnline customers

5 winners topped their respective categories based on the performance/pricing ratio. Starhub is totally out of the consideration.

My comments are:

1) Singtel and M1 has upgraded their plan in terms of download and upload speed to match Starhub. They have also offers 1 more plan to cater customers’ needs. We observed that Starhub is totally not interested in this market segment and price itself unreachable to all customers. Perhaps they have surrendered in this uncompetitive field.

2) The previous M1 plan is definitely cheaper at 384 kbps upload speed. By enhancing to 512 kbps, they increase the price from S$19.36 to S$27.10 (40% increase) for the additional insignificant 128 kbps upload speed. We have only ourselves to blame. After we strongly recommend M1 Broadband V2000, M1 must have noticed the considerable boost of subscribers. To maximize shareholders’ benefit, they chose profit over market share. M1 no longer seems attractive if we consider Singtel’s 1000 plan offered at a mere S$17.94 montly (with FREE security suite).

3) The next question to ask is whether 30GB monthly is enough for a normal user as we know that the penalty for excess use is heavy since Singtel is the only telco offering LIMITED bandwidth. Here, we see that Singtel is smart to pinpoint what 50GB provides to avoid future arguments. However, they fail to tell those who choose 1000 what 30GB can do. We shall fill in the gap for your comparison based on a realistic 100kB/email, 300KB/web, 5MB/song, 50MB/video.

KB	Email	WAP Pages	Web Pages	Songs	Videos
50,000,000	500,000	1,666,666	166,666	10,0000	1,000
30,000,000	300,000	1,000,000	100,000	6,000	600

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3)

Typically, If you have 100 emails, surf web for 30 minutes (10 clicks/min), download 2 songs and watch 10 youtube videos daily, you will clock 15.87GB/mth. This is still way below the quota of 30GB. We can deduce that the bulk of the use depends on video which consume much bandwidth. By limiting watching videos, you can dramatically control your bandwidth below 50GB or even 30GB. Perhaps this chart tells us 30GB plan is good enough for an average Joe.

4) The picture is crystal clear now. The recommendations are suggested for various users based on performance/price ratio. The remaining question is how good the connection is. This is a tough one as it depends on your location. Though everyone claimed the coverage is more than 99%, it is skeptical if there is sufficient coverage for denser population in certain areas. We are also skeptical if there is suffice coverage in less dense area. From earlier post, OCworkbench remarked the old M1 network is excellent. He has tested on weekend in a crowded area.

5) Last but not least, we realized that calls can be made much cheaper if we can hop on the VOIP wagon. To eliminate latency, it is advisable to clock minimum 1.5Mbps upload and download speed.

6) Useful updated information for your consideration before you make decision.

Telco (Customer care officer)	Voice billing charges	Free gift(s)	Promotions
M1 (Ms Athiah)	Full 1st min following by 6 sec block	Huawei E960 router	Currently 30% discount, down from 50%.
Starhub (Ms Sophie)	Per second billing is an advantage.	None	None
Singtel (Ms Shan)	Full 1st min following by 6 sec block	None	You must catch the weekends Christmas promotion to enjoy the discount. Valid for new voice plan with added value broadband on mobile.

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5)

6)

Real cost analysis - There is no free lunch and the 3 telco confuse us with the different bundle smoke screen. In order to determine the BEST plan, we need to dissect and scrutinise the real cost. We shall take the 5 candidates and include Starhub Value plan to distinguish the thorn among the roses.

			PICK
Telco	Formula	Starhub	M1	M1	M1	Singtel	Singtel
Plan		Value	Broadband V 2Mbps	Broadband V 4Mbps	Broadband V 7.2Mbps	1000	2000
Target Segment		BUDGET	BUDGET	MID	HIGH	BUDGET	BUDGET
Standard Price (S$)		36.38	38.72	51.36	69.30	22.42	34.85
After discount (S$)	A	36.38	27.10	35.95	48.51	17.94	20.91
Lowest mobile plan	B	20.33	NA	NA	NA	15.00	15.00
Number of minutes	C	80	80	80	80	80	80
Cost per minute (S$)	D	0.1605	0.08	0.08	0.08	0.1605	0.1605
Cost for 80 minutes	E = C * D	12.84	6.40	6.40	6.40	12.84	12.84
1. Total cost without 80min (S$)	F1 = A - E (Starhub/Singtel), F1 = A (M1)	23.54	27.10	35.95	48.51	5.10	8.07
2. Total cost for 80min (S$)	F2 = A + B (Starhub/Singtel), F2 = A + E (M1)	56.71	33.50	42.35	54.91	32.94	35.91
3. Total cost for 120min (S$)	F3 = F2 + (40 * D)	63.13	36.70	42.55	58.11	39.36	42.33
4. Total cost for 200min (S$)	F4 = F2 + (120 * D)	75.97	43.10	51.95	64.51	52.20	55.17

On first sight, we notice that Singtel seemingly offers the lowest cost of pure broadband on mobile (great marketing smoke bomb!). However, with the heavy burden of adding a voice plan, M1 stood out to be the winner. Note that at 80min level, M1 plan is superior than Singtel 1000 in terms of upload/download speed despite the cost being marginally higher. Furthermore, since voice is an add-on service, you will pay less if you call out for less than 80 min/mth. On the contrary, you will still pay the least should you exceed the call out to 200 mins. The last thing on your mind is the bandwidth which is unlimited making it the definite choice.

It is amazing how broadband on mobile has come so far to make it possible to own a mobile voice plan and access the net for less than S$50 (200 min talk time and unlimited access). Technology has made it possible. To make the deal sweeter, sell the Huawei router in eBay and earn some pocket money. (Thanks to hdtv’s comment, Huawei router is for renting only and regretfully cannot make the deal any sweeter. Hitherto, M1 V2Mbps is still the BEST value plan.) The challenges ahead are what to do with the knowledge at hand while you are on the road. Perhaps I will suggest some in the next blog.

For more details on telco, please visit the following:

· Singtel

· Starhub

· M1

Singapore's BEST 3G broadband for mobile phone Plan (Jun 08)

Broadband for Mobile targets both the PC/Notebook market and the mobile phone. The selling points are:

1) Mobility - You can move and surf with no signal and distance concerns compared to a wireless LAN network;
2) Ready hardware:
a) PC/Notebook + 3G/3.5G USB adaptor + 3G SIM data card; or
b) 3G/3.5G mobile phone + 3G SIM data card; and
3) Connectivity - You can connect to internet as long as you are inside the 3G/3.5G wireless mobile network. You will jump from cell to cell while travelling around 99.9% of Singapore.

All the 3 operators in Singapore offers Broadband for Mobile Plan but today, we confine ourselves only to Broadband for Mobile Phone. So, Broadband for PC/Notebook will NOT be considered. There are subtle differences amongst the offerings and we shall identify the BEST VALUE plan.

Before we begin, we need to define our selection criteria. They are:

1) Monthly data transfer: 50MB - 50GB
When we talk about Broadband mobile phone plan, we talk about upto 50GB of data usage/month. If you are interested in using only GPRS services, small traffic upto 50MB of data usage/month which is NOT fully utilitising "broadband" bandwidth. Read no further and click HERE for the best mobile plan for less than 50MB of data usage. The tricky part is there is no suitable mobile plan between 10MB and 10GB. This is where the telcos earn your bucks. If you are a heavy mobile internet user and you choose GPRS, you pay much more than a broadband mobile customer. If you are a light mobile internet user (students or budget users etc), you will not consider broadband at all. So you must be a heavy mobile data user to exploit the bandwidth given.

2) Consider ONLY broadband for MOBILE PHONE Broadband for mobile can be for both PC/Notebook or mobile phone. Here, we only consider mobile phone because Singapore has many Wi-Fi hotspots and 80% Singaporeans have internet access in both home and office. However, we need instant internet access in 3 likely scenarios: waiting time, travelling time and instant update of information (shares, email, MSN etc). Plans like Starhub SurfLite and M1 Broadband 2000 are only for PC/Notebook so they will be excluded. It is A BIG MISTAKE to sign up these plans as you need to change voice SIM card and data SIM card to use mobile and broadband respectively.

3) Broadband mobile Access speed The maximum of data access speed of 3G mobile phone is 384 kbps while the 3.5G HSDPA mobile phone can support upto 7.2Mbps. However, typical speed for 3.5G HSDPA is recorded at 800kbps and 3Mbps. Therefore, it is not necessary to focus on high speed transfer. Since it is the BEST VALUE plan, we look at cheapest plan at the reasonable speed.

4) Link to mobile phone plan The tricky concern is broadband mobile plan is initially designed for data access. Due to the booming number of high end mobile phone offering 3G/3.5G, we expect the same card for broadband access. The answer is a disappointing NO. If you sign the wrong plan, you will be paying for another data SIM card with no voice access. Therefore, you need to switch data SIM card and voice SIM card repeatedly. Ideally, we wish to have a phone that can call and access broadband on a 3G phone.

After stating the boundary of our considerations, there are only 6 plans offered by the 3 Singapore telcos. They are:

1) Starhub Ultimate;
2) M1 Broadband V2000;
3) M1 Broadband V3000;
4) Singtel 512;
5) Singtel 1800; and
6) Singtel 3600.

I came out with the following table:


My comments and observations are:

1) Singtel has the most plans for broadband for mobile phone while Starhub has only 1 suitable plan. To be competitive in the upcoming market, it is a wake up call before they lose all market share.

2) Although Singtel offers a maximum of 50GB, I believe it is hard to hit the limit with mobile phone alone as the storage capacity for mobile is limited. Therefore, it is a reasonable target as compared to the low-end GPRS plan.

3) The BEST VALUE PLAN is definitely M1 Broadband V2000 as it offers unlimited data with download and upload speed of 2Mbps and 384kbps respectively at a price of S$19.36 w/GST. The beauty is it also offer free incoming call which does not require user to sign up for a separate mobile plan.

4) Singtel 512 has slow access speed and upper cap of 50GB but charge more expensive than M1 Broadband V2000. Singtel 1800 offers less but charge 100% more than M1 Broadband V2000.

5) Starhub Ultimate is expensive at S$36.38 even after 50% discount for mobile phone. However, if it is for PC/Notebook, it is perhaps a better choice at 1.9Mbps upload and 7.2Mbps download. A much better choice than highly priced but poor performing Singtel 3600. Singtel 3600 is a total rip-off which is not recommended for anyone.

6) M1 Broadband V3000 pales in comparison to Starhub Ultimate at the price range of S$35 but beats Singtel 1800 flat.


While we conclude M1 broadband V2000 is the obvious winner in this round, you may challenge me on the mobile plan, freebies, loyalties points, 3G/3.5G mobile phone selection etc. All these factors may change the outcome of this comparison. Well, let me give you a hint. Remember M1 Broadband V2000 is the only plan with free incoming call, you can definitely save much more if you sign up. Why? I will show you next time....