Singapore Mobile operators go for Tiered pricing. Both SingTel & StarHub slashes data volume by greater than 90%

Source: CNA

Good news to Telco's & Employees/Engineers working there. But bad news to end users.

Yesterday SingTel announced the new plans for LTE and at the same time announced that they would be reducing the 12 GB limit to 2GB. Within minutes StarHub followed suite and in a more aggressive manner they slashed to 1GB.

This means all you can do with the mobile price plan on SH is watching around 8 hours of Youtube (My observation here) in a month or 40 min / work day of youtube.

No more downloads/videos/streaming on mobile. Ok, no more complaining and as a consumer, now I want few things from SingTel/StarHub.

1. Reduce the prices 


Based on SingTel price plans, a basic plan with 100 min voice min is priced at $25.68/month
at the same time based on current plans the 12GB data with 100 min is priced at $39.90/month
So the current charges are estimated as ~ $14/month for 12 GB.

Now I don't expect them to charge based on the same but based on SingTel pricing itself they intend to charge $5.35/GB. If I apply the same principle, then we shouldn't be paying $14 but $10.70. But I am not optimistic as the market is kind of fixed in Singapore and without real competition all the operators simply price in the same ranges.

2. Improve Coverage, Speeds

I'm sure majority of the people have noticed that lately the mobile coverage/speed in Singapore sucks. I travel quite frequently in the region so I carry the local SIM cards. To my surprise even the developing nations (India, Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia) offers much better voice clarity & data speed compared to Singapore. In Australia Optus offers $2 / day package where you can enjoy unlimited voice/data/sms by simply paying $2 a day (info here).

By the way, recently Google study made it official that Singapore offers one of the slowest mobile speeds among developed nations. Now Operators can't give an excuse that they can't go on expanding spree forever because users are using data without paying for.

3. Service


Not really related to tiered pricing or buffet pricing but in general I believe this is high time that Operators need to improve on service levels and treat customers as 'humans'. When we try to reach out to technical support it is common to wait a min of 20-30 min in Q listening to a boring music. The same operator can reach us any time and blast SMS advertisements at middle of night.

IDA as regulator should come in here and stipulate certain SLA/SLG. Not the typical 'paper' SLA but real experience.

In summary I don't mind paying if I am getting the quality, reliability & service.

New Telecom Policy (NTP) - India Inc 2012

I've written about NTP some time back here

Now let me summarize the key points of the minister announcement and the release.

1. m-governance policy has been drafted to provide services via mobile phone. Basic banking services can be accessed via the mobile phone. Individual intimation of all kinds of public and private services like school/college admission/ assignments, pension payment, utility bill payments, first level health services, cash withdrawals/deposits will become the norm. A single number could be called for all government services across all three tiers, 24/7. 
2. Aadhar will enable IDs to be authenticated online or via the mobile phone. 
3. A National Broadband Plan has been initiated that aims to provide Broadband Connectivity across the length and breadth of the country by 2014 through a combination of wireless and OFC/ wireline
4. Telecom service providers will be able to support IPv6 services
5. A concerted effort to boost manufacturing activity is now exigent and Government to Create corpus to promote indigenous R&D, IPR creation, entrepreneurship, manufacturing, commercializing and deployment of state-of-the-art telecom products and services
6. One Nation - One License
7. One Nation - Full Mobile Number Portability & One Nation -Free Roaming.
8. Make available additional 300 MHz spectrum for IMT services by the year 2017 and another 200 MHz by 2020
9. Transition to new Internet Protocol (IPv 6) in the country in a phased and time bound manner by 2020
10. To revise the  existing broadband download speed of 256 Kbps to 512 Kbps and subsequently to 2 Mbps  by 2015 and higher speeds of atleast 100 Mbps thereafter

As usual, the ambitions are good and targets are high. But the billion dollar question is How, When & Who.

Again, as usual there is no mention and no details provided. Details will be shared in due course.

This is the problem with Indian policy makers and the objectives are good, planning is good and intentions are 'holy' (pun unintended) but what seriously lacks is the "Execution Plan". This is where nations like Singapore, Korea etc excels and move fast.

Out of the 10 key points I've summarized I believe the biggest change agent is point no.5. Rest are supported statements and offering speeds of greater than 100 Mbps (even if it's in 2020 or 2050) is still a dream which I don't think I can see it in my life time in India. 

We seriously lack respectable Hardware market and this is where we need to move our resources and R&D effort. A billion+ people and more than 50% of code in any software is generated by Indians but the platform that runs the code is not manufactured in India. This is where we can overcome our dependency on services sector too.

+60301 Phone Number.. Finally found it's from the VoIP software pFingo, Starhub.

Recently my phone rings at quite odd times and when I look at the incoming number, it's a bit weird too. The number is +60301.
I picked up few calls and end up disconnecting as its from some marketing folks from China speaking in mandarin. So I decided not to pick this call anymore.

But lately I started receiving complaints from a overseas friend that I am not accepting calls. After couple of minutes I realized the number is from pFingo. It's a VoIP service from Starhub, a singapore telco.

The good thing is you can make calls to Singapore phone numbers at dirt cheap rates (1c) and if you are on a monthly pack it's basically free. So understand that many SME's, people on travel tend to use this service and so does the marketing folks from China/HK/Other countries(who wish to reach Singapore).

I am not sure whether is there a solution but personally I won't change my selective call picking pattern which is to pick up a call if I know the caller (stored in address book) or it's a mobile number. This is the main reason I opted for Skype Out & Google Voice which gives me Caller ID.

With Skype you can simply set up your mobile number as the ID number. Instructions are here. & Google Voice is simple. You'll get a US number and people will see that number.

Indian Food Delivery in Singapore

The title says it all.

1. Brindas 24 hour
This is my first preference due to their service quality.

Food - *** (3/5). Not too great and standard items such as naan, chicken curry are acceptable quality.
Value - **** (4/5). Value for money
Service - **** (4/5). I'm happy with their service.

2. Anjappar

Food - ***.(3.5/5). Tastes the same as in Anjappar.
Value - ** (2/5). Its "CHEATING". They don't show the prices with GST (Against LAW) & Some how the bill prices doesn't match with online menu prices due to 'recent price revisions'.
Service - * (1/5). This is the sad part. Food is better than Brindas but service sucks.I've the food delivered with 'leakages'.

3. Komalas

I don't think I've to add any stuff here. :)
Food - **** (4/5)
Value - *** (3/5)
Service - ** (2/5). Delays. delays delays.. Other than that it's quite good.

I've tried other options like Hungrydelivery, CurryXpress in the past but stopped due to the 'price'. Most importantly the hefty delivery charges & high minimum order.

Heimdall package for Samsung Galaxy Anycall S [SHW-m110s] - Korean handset firmware/android upgrade

Ok guys. If you are one of those folks who purchased a Korean Anycall due to any reason and stuck with its old Android version then this post is for you.

First refer to this post from XDA

If your phone is not detected by ODIN or if you 'bricked' your phone then Heimdall is for you. You can find more info from XDA post here about Heimdall. A word of caution,

DO NOT TRY TO USE ANY OF I9000 FIRMWARE ON M110S.

M110S is not i9000 and if you try then you've a 'semi bricked' phone. You'll end up with a phone that doesnt start or recognize the SIM card.

To recover you can use this package for M110S. I've installed on my Anycall a week ago and it's working fine. Here goes the mediafire links.

http://www.mediafire.com/?dkb1v53q6g54b58
http://www.mediafire.com/?208p10tkbki6w40

Download both files and merge with HJSPLIT.

Airtel prepaid validity - An intriguing question

More than 90% of Indians use Prepaid mobile phones. So it is very common for people to simply purchase a SIM card with INR 100 (~ $ 2) and throw it off after a week. (By the way on a separate note these kinda experiences and unmatching financials shows why I don't believe the 100 mil subscriber numbers by Bharti, RIL etc)

The problem I am having is keeping a number permanently (or atleast for few years) so my banking systems, train reservation systems & other online systems doesn't have to be updated every few months. I've tried all the options other than subscribing to a post paid (which is not very cheap or 'doesnt offer value to me')

1. Airtel Customer care told me that the "sim" validity is typically 35 or 40 years (?) and you can check with *123# USSD code. However the 'main' account has a validity period of 2 months so if you don't use or make any calls within the 2 months your number with remaining balance is gone
2. Online forums says one year validity; 45 days validity; 
3. The salesman at Airtel store told me that it's 90 days. So every 3 months I've to recharge with minimum RC card 

My experiences're quite diff. 

1. I've a SIM card with "0" balance which is not dead even it's 2 years old.
2. I've a new SIM card with 300 balance (supposed to be) but dead within 1 month
3. I've a 3G data card which is dead within one week after I utilized the complete data.

Conclusion: Anything can happen in India. So go for a post-paid if you want to avoid the hassle. If not follow the crowd. Don't expect Airtel (or other telecom) to offer 'service'. It sucks and they charge per minute basis :)

Oops SingTel did it again.. MIO TV glitches during EPL season finale

Source: CNA

SingTel did it again with its MIO TV. I'm sure the exec, engineers will kill who ever with the name Murphy.

During the most critical moment the system failed again. As usual, SingTel issued a statement that

This was due to an unprecedented number of viewers tuning in for the season finale. 


So now, we've

• Expensive HDB's/Condo because 'unprecedented number of people migrated to Singapore'
• Trains failing because of 'more than anticipated people riding public transport'
• Slow/poor mobile networks because people are using mobiles
• TV/Cable systems failing because people are watching programs.

The root cause is clear. It's the people

We should schedule it in a way, like in a HDB block, all the even number units should watch first half. Odd number units should watch for the remaining half. Then they can share between themselves.

Remember, you shouldn't sms or call each other. It could congest the mobile network.

User Privacy - iToday app from Singapore

I've joined the bandwagon on Android recently and while trying to download few apps I realized some strange thing in "permissions".
Below is a screen shot of iToday - the app from Todayonline, a popular newspaper/tabloid in Singapore. 

I've put the text in the rectangle box. Basically the app & today wants to read the user phone number, serial number of the phone & whether a call is active, the number of call that is connected & the like


Not sure what is included in "& the like" but even without that it is very disturbing to see that they Today wants to know the phone number & call history/logs.

Why a newspaper wants to know the mobile phone number & call status? All they need is the internet access and nothing else. I can only conclude one thing which is "advertisements" or "selling the phone numbers".

I am not very comfortable with sharing my phone number without knowing how this would end up. So opted for "SG News" which simply needs "internet access".

This shows again the level of awareness & respect is given to "privacy" in singapore.

Hyderabad Airport - Skyhigh User Charges, Terrible service/Experience. Top of it the "manual check-in with hand written boarding pass"

I saw in a news (Not sure if it's Hindu) that Hyderabad Airport is the 4th most expensive airport to fly & Delhi is the most expensive airport to fly in the world. Incidentally both are operated by the same company.

The sad part is the "Value" offered by these airports. I just returned from a short trip from Hyderabad and the experience is as frustrating as one would expect in Indian airports. But paying exorbitant charges and getting ridiculous experience is what makes me pissed off and decided not to fly to Hyd again.

I don't think I can write it here but want to share a "real surprise". Have you ever told that the "check-in" computers are failed and passengers need to do a "manual checkin" by writing their names, details, flight info and passport stuff on a piece of white paper?

It happened and yes, it's in Hyderabad. This exercise alone caused a havoc at the check-in counter as many passengers were searching for pens and writing in queue. As usual the service staff are sitting at their seats & talking over their cellular phones. Result: 30 min delay to the flight and a mad rush of people running to the security area.

Atleast the Singapore Air (I've purchased the ticket through SQ) could have taken control of the situation but they seems to be missing.

Hyderabad Airport Taxi to City & Call Taxi booking.

After 8 years (and first time) I've landed at NTR International Airport (aka RG Airport which is the Official name) in Hyderabad.

The first surprise is at the baggage handling. Cases are dropped from 3-4 ft slanted belt and I pity those folks whose nice briefcases ended up with broken wheels or handles.

Second is the transport from Airport to City. The worst part is the website itself which promotes only the two cab operators. They promote Meru & Sky Cabs which must be metered. That's where the real problem is. metered taxis are not cheap and I ended up paying INR 930 (~SGD25).

While chatting with friends I realized it is always better to book a taxi in advance rather than taking the cabs at Airport. If you book in advance you can get it one way for INR 400 & twoways for 800-900. Which is almost half the price.

You can give a try @ below links or just do a google. I myself tried Orange cabs (Innova) for Drop off & Return. I've received an SMS on the day with taxi driver name, contact no & details. Timing is not very punctual (30 min late) so plz make sure you tell the driver/taxi company some what earlier pickup time. Have buffer is always good in India(Sad enough..)

http://www.yellowcabshyd.com/tariff.html
http://www.orangecabs.com/?page=tariff
http://www.celcabs.com/hyd-fares.html