StarHub ups ante and SingTel reacts but M1 is the silent assassin

Who ever said a little competition ever hurt anyone? This time round, consumers in Singapore are seeing some benefits. Since Singtel brought the iPhone 3G to our shores in Aug of 2008, they have enjoyed a surge in new and recontracts on subscriber numbers. Being the only telco with exclusive rights, one can only wonder what’s the real number of iPhones sold and how many new subscriptions they managed to lock in.

Users of Nokia, Sony Ericsson and even BlackBerry left their devices to lay hands on the cult iPhone 3G. I’m no angel and I was too a BlackBerry user. With 5 years of service, my 7100g needed a rest anyway. It will still serve me during my 3 remaining ICTs.

Singtel price plan for iPhone 3G/3GS (before 9, Dec 2009)

For a cool device, not one that is ‘unlocked’ and had warranty from a local telco, I was soon tinkering with the iPhone 3G 16GB after trading in my temperamental Sony Ericsson P1i. All I needed was to top up another SGD8 for my iPhone on the iFlexPlus price plan. It might seem like a steal but selling my SE P1i in the open marketplace would have pocketed me an additional SGD200-300. I just didn’t want to bother with that so I decided against it.

The monthly subscriptions were another story all together. SGD95 a month for 2GB of local data isn’t a lot. BlackBerry users will know what I mean in comparison to SGD67+ for unlimited data on either BIS or BES. Still, folks who wanted the coolest handset played right into Singtel’s hands. Yeah, I’m one of those suckers. We all know the story when Singtel launch the iPhone 3GS this year don’t we?

The past month saw the remaining 2 telcos StarHub and M1 announcing that they too will be retailing the iPhone 3GS by year’s end. There was no clear indication on the retail price of the iPhone 3GS nor the data bundle. Yet, folks were pretty sure Singtel will not be ahead in the game for much longer.

Both telcos began taking online pre-orders and consumers who were locked to existing contracts or just didn’t want to switch providers couldn’t be happier. Sure, not everyone may want an iPhone even if it’s cool and works great as a phone or iPod not to mention the number of apps available. Yet for those who wanted one, this was great news.

Yesterday saw both StarHub and M1 releasing prices for the iPhone 3GS. As expected, they made Singtel look like that big fat bully who got caught red handed and was being called to the headmaster’s office.

To be fair, let’s look at the same price plan comparison to my SGD95 iFlexPlus with Singtel. StarHub started the ball rolling by announcing 12GB of local data for the iPhone 3GS @SGD98 a month and excess data usage capped at SGD30.

StarHub announces price plan for iPhone 3GS

I got a text message from Singtel this morning. Here’s what it reads:

From: 7415 20 – Singtel. Your iPhone plan will be upgraded FREE with 12GB local data & a $30 data cap, with no change in your subscription, from 9 Dec 2009. All this on the Network with the Best Coverage. <Stop ADV, reply UNSUB>

Notice the ‘Network’ with the ‘Best Coverage’? What rubbish! So StarHub ups the ante and that the best response from Singtel?

Unfortunately, their Best Coverage doesn’t work all that well up north. I do find StarHub offers the best coverage even in places where birds don’t poop. Namely in the extreme Northern and Western parts of the island. I decided to check out Singtel’s webpage today and here’s their updated price plan.

Singtel responds to iPhone price plans from competition

Overall, Singtel subscribers save SGD2 a month but StarHub subscribers on the equivalent plan gets an additional 200 free text messages. Now if you are a student; and are like most students I know, the unlimited SMS / MMS across StarHub’s plans will translate into more value for you. Not to be outdone, M1 too released their price plan yesterday.

M1 releases iPhone price plan

Though the iPhone Value and iPhone Lite plans lack 2GB of data and are capped at SGD6.38 more monthly compared to StarHub and Singtel, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out which plans they are really pushing.

On both the iPhone Extreme and iPhone Unlimited plans, M1 is offering unlimited local data usage. I don’t know about the rest but I wouldn’t mind unlimited data for SGD3 more a month (Singtel iFlexPlus). That said, aren’t data plans over-priced? Someone please explain the rational for paying exorbitant data usage prices while Google provides free wifi at airports during the Christmas season.

To sum it up:

• StarHub iPhone Plan: Good value for students and NSF (no camera phones in-camp right?) with unlimited SMS / MMS.
• M1 iPhone Plan: Great value for heavy data users (surf, emails and etc.) on higher scale plan with unlimited data usage.
• Singtel iPhone Plan: You are an old school idiot like me or are locked in by your earlier purchase of the iPhone 3G like me as well.

So, plain and simple. If you could choose the provider to purchase your iPhone 3GS and sign-up a 24 months contract with, which would you pick? My sensible choice would be M1 but if I had to go with the consumer experience, it has to be StarHub. Check out @StarHubNews on twitter, facebook or @StarHubCares and you will know what I mean. M1 is the silent assassin here but it can still do better in customer engagement. Singtel, I’m not sure if they even listen so why bother?

For those of you on the iPhone or will be getting one very soon, check out the WhatsApp iPhone-2-iPhone Messenger. Give me a shout if you’ll like me to add you to my @WhatsApp contacts. There’s a ‘Contact’ tab on the top of my blog if you rather not leave a comment with your number below.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 at 13:05 and is filed under ramblings and tagged with 3gs, 7100g, cool device, iPhone, open marketplace, silent assassin, sony ericsson, starhub, subscriber numbers, ups ante. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.