{"id":29140,"date":"2012-06-05T07:00:27","date_gmt":"2012-06-04T23:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/techielobang.com\/blog\/?p=29140"},"modified":"2012-06-06T09:01:03","modified_gmt":"2012-06-06T01:01:03","slug":"singtel-introduces-4g-services-cuts-data-plan-for-current-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/techielobang.com\/blog\/2012\/06\/05\/singtel-introduces-4g-services-cuts-data-plan-for-current-services\/","title":{"rendered":"SingTel Introduces 4G Services, Cuts Data Plan for Current Services"},"content":{"rendered":"

Update (6th June): Just to clarify, there is a cap for the new SingTel plans. The data charge will be capped at S$88 (S$94.16 w\/GST). And if you do not recontract after 1st July, you can still stay on the old plan (free 12GB data). New plan will be in effect after 1st July. If you recontract now, you can still choose the old plan.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

SingTel made a very big announcement that is going to affect many of the current SingTel users from 1st July 2012. With the introduction of the new 4G network island wide, SingTel has also made changes to the current subscription plan, which I think many will be very unhappy about it.<\/p>\n

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With the new SingTel Flexi and iFlexi plan for 4G services, users with 4G enabled handsets will be able to enjoy the high data speed. Currently, there is no information on the data plans. SingTel will release them from 1st July 2012 according to the Press Release.<\/p>\n

Therefore, I suspect the PR is to address the change in the current subscription from 1st July 2012. What surprises me is that the new plans actually increases the local SMS bundle. According to Straits Times recently<\/a>, SMS usage has been dropping and SingTel, as a provider of such service, actually increases the bundle thinking that people will benefit from it.<\/p>\n

Based on the PR, it mentions 10% of their subscribers are heavy SMS users and about 10% of the subscribers are heavy data users (not sure if heavy means more than 2GB usage per month). It sounds logical since the cost per SMS (above the cap) is 5.35 cents\/SMS while for the new data plan, it is S$5.35\/GB (check the details in PR).<\/p>\n

However, if I read it carefully, there is NO CAP for data usage. Previously, the data is capped at S$30\/month for unlimited data usage. I believe this is gone with the new plan. It has been replaced by a cheaper per Gigabyte cost (which SingTel claims in the PR is a 500 times reduction).<\/p>\n

This is the current SingTel plan.<\/p>\n

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Enough of my ranting. However, I am sure the rest (of the Telcos) will follow soon. This will be the end of our nice data plan. However, I am sure network congestion will ease after that. In a business sense, this seems to be the way to go to ease congestion and reduce the cost of increasing equipment to cope with the data traffic increase.<\/p>\n

Here is the Press Release<\/p>\n