1) Mobility - You can move and surf with no signal and distance concerns compared to a wireless LAN network;
2) Ready hardware:
a) PC/Notebook + 3G/3.5G USB adaptor + 3G SIM data card; or
b) 3G/3.5G mobile phone + 3G SIM data card; and
3) Connectivity - You can connect to internet as long as you are inside the 3G/3.5G wireless mobile network. You will jump from cell to cell while travelling around 99.9% of Singapore.
All the 3 operators in Singapore offers Broadband for Mobile Plan but today, we confine ourselves only to Broadband for Mobile Phone. So, Broadband for PC/Notebook will NOT be considered. There are subtle differences amongst the offerings and we shall identify the BEST VALUE plan.
Before we begin, we need to define our selection criteria. They are:
1) Monthly data transfer: 50MB - 50GB
When we talk about Broadband mobile phone plan, we talk about upto 50GB of data usage/month. If you are interested in using only GPRS services, small traffic upto 50MB of data usage/month which is NOT fully utilitising "broadband" bandwidth. Read no further and click HERE for the best mobile plan for less than 50MB of data usage. The tricky part is there is no suitable mobile plan between 10MB and 10GB. This is where the telcos earn your bucks. If you are a heavy mobile internet user and you choose GPRS, you pay much more than a broadband mobile customer. If you are a light mobile internet user (students or budget users etc), you will not consider broadband at all. So you must be a heavy mobile data user to exploit the bandwidth given.
2) Consider ONLY broadband for MOBILE PHONE Broadband for mobile can be for both PC/Notebook or mobile phone. Here, we only consider mobile phone because Singapore has many Wi-Fi hotspots and 80% Singaporeans have internet access in both home and office. However, we need instant internet access in 3 likely scenarios: waiting time, travelling time and instant update of information (shares, email, MSN etc). Plans like Starhub SurfLite and M1 Broadband 2000 are only for PC/Notebook so they will be excluded. It is A BIG MISTAKE to sign up these plans as you need to change voice SIM card and data SIM card to use mobile and broadband respectively.
3) Broadband mobile Access speed The maximum of data access speed of 3G mobile phone is 384 kbps while the 3.5G HSDPA mobile phone can support upto 7.2Mbps. However, typical speed for 3.5G HSDPA is recorded at 800kbps and 3Mbps. Therefore, it is not necessary to focus on high speed transfer. Since it is the BEST VALUE plan, we look at cheapest plan at the reasonable speed.
4) Link to mobile phone plan The tricky concern is broadband mobile plan is initially designed for data access. Due to the booming number of high end mobile phone offering 3G/3.5G, we expect the same card for broadband access. The answer is a disappointing NO. If you sign the wrong plan, you will be paying for another data SIM card with no voice access. Therefore, you need to switch data SIM card and voice SIM card repeatedly. Ideally, we wish to have a phone that can call and access broadband on a 3G phone.
After stating the boundary of our considerations, there are only 6 plans offered by the 3 Singapore telcos. They are:
1) Starhub Ultimate;
2) M1 Broadband V2000;
3) M1 Broadband V3000;
4) Singtel 512;
5) Singtel 1800; and
6) Singtel 3600.
I came out with the following table:
My comments and observations are:
1) Singtel has the most plans for broadband for mobile phone while Starhub has only 1 suitable plan. To be competitive in the upcoming market, it is a wake up call before they lose all market share.
2) Although Singtel offers a maximum of 50GB, I believe it is hard to hit the limit with mobile phone alone as the storage capacity for mobile is limited. Therefore, it is a reasonable target as compared to the low-end GPRS plan.
3) The BEST VALUE PLAN is definitely M1 Broadband V2000 as it offers unlimited data with download and upload speed of 2Mbps and 384kbps respectively at a price of S$19.36 w/GST. The beauty is it also offer free incoming call which does not require user to sign up for a separate mobile plan.
4) Singtel 512 has slow access speed and upper cap of 50GB but charge more expensive than M1 Broadband V2000. Singtel 1800 offers less but charge 100% more than M1 Broadband V2000.
5) Starhub Ultimate is expensive at S$36.38 even after 50% discount for mobile phone. However, if it is for PC/Notebook, it is perhaps a better choice at 1.9Mbps upload and 7.2Mbps download. A much better choice than highly priced but poor performing Singtel 3600. Singtel 3600 is a total rip-off which is not recommended for anyone.
6) M1 Broadband V3000 pales in comparison to Starhub Ultimate at the price range of S$35 but beats Singtel 1800 flat.
While we conclude M1 broadband V2000 is the obvious winner in this round, you may challenge me on the mobile plan, freebies, loyalties points, 3G/3.5G mobile phone selection etc. All these factors may change the outcome of this comparison. Well, let me give you a hint. Remember M1 Broadband V2000 is the only plan with free incoming call, you can definitely save much more if you sign up. Why? I will show you next time....
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