//beconfused

I made this post in response to the article I saw at pketh’s blog. You can read about Toronto’s cellular market here.

Singapore’s cellular service market is rather small. As far as I am concern, there are only 3 companies offering cellular services. Number one in terms of customer base in the cellular market is Singapore Telecommunications (SingTel for short), with a near 50% victory over the other two. The other two are MobileOne (M1 for short) and Starhub, around 32% and 18% respectively if memory serves me correctly. All three targets different crowds.

(SingTel Comcenter building at Somerset.)

SingTel seems to be going after businessmen aggressively, they offer excellent connectivity and no-crap services. On second thoughts, let’s remove the string of words “no-crap”. Did you know SingTel’s peak hours is till 9 at night? SingTel also has a subsidiary called “pod” which targets teenagers.

M1 is targeting teenagers mainly, offering a range of cellular plans with affordable prices. I used to be M1’s customer and I work at ExxonMobil Singapore during my holidays. I work at 31st floor. And trust me, M1 has absolutely no reception! All my colleagues are using SingTel! M1 has good coverage in other places though.

Starhub is a relatively new company. They’re first to offer free incoming calls. SingTel and M1 later offered similar plans. Starhub is famous for their bad connectivity throughout the years. But I heard they’ve improved now.

I am using a SG$28.00 plan from SingTel. [SG$1.00=US$0.60] View the details here. I get 200 minutes free talk time (lots of off-peak talk time), 360 free SMS plus Caller-ID features. [SG 1minute=US 1minute] No voice mail for me, I do not need that anyway.

SMS stands for Short Messaging erm.. System? I think so. That’s a really hot thing in Singapore. Almost all plans comes with free SMS. For each additional SMS you made, SingTel charges 5 cents.

I often receive messages like “wad rm later” from my friends. And I reply, “t123″. They are trying to ask “What is the room number for the next lesson?”. My reply is basically the room number as you have probably guessed. You see how such a long sentence can be shorten? Hurray for Singlish (Singapore English, our government find it distasteful though)!

Peak and off-peak hour charges are 20.8 and 10.4 cents respectively, both in Singapore currency.

By the way, I am using a Nokia 8310. I like to call it eighty-three-ten.

Well, that wraps up the cellular overview in Singapore.

This is the first time I post something in response of someone else’s posting, in this case, pketh’s. Interesting. Should do it more often.

Tags: mobile, nokia, singapore, singtel