Taking the market by surprise today, SingTel has come up with a mobile phone plan that lets users customise how many minutes of airtime, number of SMSes and free data usage they get to enjoy each month.
Said to be the first in Asia, this Easy Mobile offering lets users configure their plans either through a smartphone app or on a website, while on the go.
There are four post-paid plans so far, ranging from a S$33-a-month Small plan to a S$105-a-month XL plan. Each plan is defined by how many “units”, or credits, that you can use for airtime, SMSes or data usage.
Each unit gives you 50 minutes of outgoing local calls, 500 SMS or MMS messages, or 500MB of local data usage. You get free incoming calls as well.
So, for the cheapest Small plan with just four units, you can opt for, say, 100 minutes of call time (two units), 500 SMSes (one unit) and 500MB of data (one unit).
In comparison, a slightly more expensive S$39.90 regular SingTel plan gets you 100 minutes, 500 SMSes and 2GB of data. Here, the difference is 1GB of data, which makes up for the additional S$6.90 a month that you have to pay in the regular plan.
Obviously, there are many permutations you can work out. But a quick conclusion here? The new plans are not always cheaper. You still have to pay for heavier usage.
To be fair, SingTel has given users more flexibility and ease of use in customising things in a way that other telecom operators have not. That’s a good thing.
If you fancy using more data for things like Skype or WhatsApp, you can dial up your free data bundle and keep your call minutes at a minimum.
For now, the offer is only open to new customers. Those already on SingTel will have to wait for news “in the coming months” to switch over.
You can also still stick to the old plans, of course, if you know what you want and don’t fancy changing your usage patterns each month. Some users will also want to stay with their old plans with a more generous 12GB of free data usage.
You just have to forego the subsidies that telcos give for renewing a contract. There’s no free lunch in life, as they say, and that certainly rings true for mobile plans.
CORRECTION (June 17, 12:40pm SGT): An earlier version of the report said that users can opt to have no SMSes in their plans. This is incorrect. They have to select at least one unit of calls, SMSes or data in each plan. We are sorry for the error.
