If you are signing up or renewing a broadband, mobile or pay-TV service these days, the questions you face can sometimes be rather daunting, given big changes – mostly positive – that have shaken up the telecom market in the past few years.

Who has the best broadband deals in Singapore? Who has the best bundled “triple play” deals with all three services packaged nicely and billed in a single envelop? And, of course, how do I switch all my plans over to one operator?

Answer these questions well and you could be on the way to substantial savings by buying wisely and also enjoy the convenience of having fewer bills from so many operators.

About four years ago, I’d have told you, if you watch live football, the choice was simple: go for StarHub, because it had the fastest (cable modem) broadband, per-second billing for its mobile services and of course, the crown jewel – English Premier League (EPL) on its cable TV channels.

But things have changed so much in the past few years that consumers are sometimes spoilt, perhaps even confused with choice.

Fibre broadband has truly given users better deals – S$39 a month for an unheard of 100Mbps, for starters. The upcoming three seasons of the EPL could well be shown on both SingTel and StarHub, and possibly even M1, thanks to Singapore’s new pay-TV rules. And let’s not forget number portability, which lets you keep your mobile number while switching telcos.

With so many changes in the past few years and more upcoming, what should you be aware of when you next sign up for those two-year contracts? Here’s a little guide, gleaned from my own experience buying these services. …

Further to Alfred’s post on number portability in Singapore …

ST Forum has published IDA’s response to my original letter. The reason they provided for not mandating true number portability (I will define true number portability here as when you can indeed port a number to any plan – pre or post paid) is …

“This is in recognition that consumers would choose mobile services based on their needs (for example, pre-paid users usually prefer the flexibility of not being on a contract), and most would likely stay as a pre- or post-paid mobile customers when they switch providers.”

Which consumers wouldn’t “choose mobile services based on their needs”? I’m sure consumers can easily find out the features and benefits of pre and post paid plans, and will choose accordingly.

BUT the point is the consumer’s needs might change and hence their choice of a mobile service might change. E.g., student starts work, uses the mobile more and wants to go from pre paid to post paid. Or like me, I’m out of the country but do come back now and then and hence want to move my Singapore mobile number from post paid to pre paid.

By disallowing true number portability, this simply goes against the initial reason for implementing what IDA calls “full number portability” – which is to empower consumers with choice and presumably promote and liberalise the local telco market.

After spending all that money and man hours of going through a public tender to get a centralised database administrator to manage number portability, how much more trouble or cost will it incur to allow number portability across pre and post paid plans?

My understanding of the number portability system is that there is a centralised database administrator which simply maps out the mobile number to the telco. You call a number, it gets routed to through this database which then passes the call on to the respective telco’s network.

What really is the issue behind Singapore’s incomplete yet “full” number portability system?

As a letter writer in the ST Forum mentioned today, full number portability in Singapore does not mean you can switch from a post-paid to a pre-paid plan when you switch cellphone operators, and still keep your number.

It was pointed out that, number port exercises elsewhere, like in Hong Kong, allow for this to happen.

It’s interesting where this goes. Though the number of people switching from post-paid to pre-paid may not be as big (most pre-paid customers don’t really care to retain their numbers – they are more interested in call rates), you’d ask why this was not worked into the whole exercise.

Is it a technical problem or more based on what telcos think the market needs?

Expect IDA to come back with a reply, and hopefully, the portability could be extended to people switching from post-paid to pre-paid as well.

For now, one workaround, though a little troublesome, would be to switch from post-paid to pre-paid within the same telco, then later jump onto a new telco by doing a pre-paid to pre-paid port.

UPDATE: my suggested workaround doesn’t work, coz telcos do not even port post-paid to pre-paid lines. thanks for pointing it out, gabriel.