Financial Planning Version 2.0

I know that I am in control of my mobile phone expenses. There are no bills (at least for one), no contracts and no monthly subscription. I am eagerly waiting to end my 2-year contract this coming December with Starhub. Then again, it is such a golden number to me, easy to remember. Come 18 June, when number portability kicks in, I await further bargains, if not, value-for-money plans. So right now, it is still prepaid card at its best.
Hei, in my profession, there is no luxury like mobile phone plan claims/subsidy. Got to save a bit and do my own calculations.


The Prepaid card plan is all about number games. Starhub is doing it. Singtel is also doing it. Coupled with gimmicks and fanciful marketing, if you studied each plan carefully, (did I say study?) it all boils down to little or not much difference between these 2 telcos. I did a check on M1’s website for information on its prepaid card, has been disappointed, and still am disappointed. Don’t intend to include M1’s prepaid card in the following comparison chart.


Considering that both telcos provide local free incoming calls, terms and conditions apply. For Starhub Green Prepaid card, a fee of 59¢ will apply for each activation (including re-activation) of on-demand Free Incoming Calls feature. A daily deduction of 59¢ will apply upon activation of On-demand Free Incoming Calls feature A minimum of $1 after the necessary deduction is required to activate FREE Incoming Calls and also to keep the on-demand FREE Incoming Calls status active. On-demand Free Incoming Calls feature is only applicable to calls received in Singapore. Singtel’s Hi!card charges $0.60 instead of $0.59.


Personally, I think that the loyalty bonus given is the key factor to consider, taking into considerations all other charges are almost similar.


In the latest deal, you pay $28 for the prepaid card and is entitled to $128 worth of goodies. The catch is that you have to (re)top up within 50days with $28, failure to do so means any subsequent balances will be forfeited. The thing to take note is that even if you used up the indicated value worth $128, you will be reverted back to the old/current scheme, unless, of course, you re top-up your card. A comparison chart below will illustrate this plan from SINGTEL and STARHUB.

SINGTEL Hi!Card

Stay with SINGTEL for 90 days (3 months), and enjoy a Loyalty Bonus from your 4th month onwards.

Enjoy loyalty bonus for every top-up, to be used for local calls, IDD calls, local/global SMS and MMS, data and roaming.

{Table not included. Realised THIS does not support MS Word Table, or is it I have not learn how to?}

STARHUB GREEN PREPAID CARD

Stay with GREEN Prepaid for a year or more and be rewarded with Loyalty Credit every time you top-up! Save when you use your credits to offset your call/SMS/MMS/GPRS charges.
30 minutes of Bonus Airtime will be issued with every $100 worth of accumulated top-up made every half yearly from 1 January till 30 June or 1 July till 31 December

{Table not included. More details available from SINGTEL/STARHUB websites.}

My comparison as follows:

Singtel hi!Card (I bought it at $8, preloaded with $10 value)

• Free IDD Calls
• Loyalty Bonus
• Free caller ID
• Free Call Hold
• Free Call Barring
• Free Call Waiting
• Non-transferable
• Able to roam with hi!Card
• Free Incoming Calls
• All calls answered/made on both lines will be charged at the prevailing local talktime charges.
• Hi!Card must be topped up every 180 days, otherwise, the hi!Card will be deactivated and the value in the hi!Card will be forfeited.
• Local calls at 8 cents per minute/everydayLocal SMS at 5 cents per message.Global SMS at 15 cents per message
• Choice of topping up your hi!Card in 7 denominations: $10, $25, $50 etc.
  

Green Prepaid card ($18 each)

• Free IDD 018
• Loyalty credit
• Bonus Airtime
• Per second billing
• FREE 10 SMS with 5 SMS sent daily
• Free Voicemail
• Free Call Divert
• Free Caller ID
• Free Multi-party call
• GREEN Prepaid lets you transfer your card balance conveniently from one GREEN Prepaid SIM card to another GREEN Prepaid SIM card.
• Able to roam with Green Prepaid Card
• Local calls, 1st min 22¢, 8¢ per min# thereafter
  (#Ends 30 June 2008, $0.18/min thereafter)
• Local SMS at 5 cents per message
• Global SMS at 15 cents per message
• MMS at $0.30 each
• Choice of topping up your hi!Card in 7 denominations: $10, $18, $20, $30 etc.
• Green Prepaid card must be topped up every 6 months, otherwise, Green prepaid card will be deactivated and the value in the Green Prepaid card will be forfeited.
  

NEW Singtel HOT $100, pay only $28:

For $28, customers get $128 worth of bundled value to be used within 50 days from the date of HOT$100 Top-up card activation.

All unused bundled value will be rollover if customer top-up with another HOT$100 Top-up card within 50 days from his/her last HOT$100 Top-up.

However, if customers top-up with other SingTel Mobile Prepaid card denominations (e.g $10, $20), the HOT$100 bundled value will NOT be rollovered.



NEW Starhub Happy $128

With each Happy $128 top up made on GREEN Prepaid, customers will receive:
$100 worth of Local Services balance for Local SMS and Local voice calls (Excluding calls to 1800/1900/LDD/15xx)

$28 worth of International Services balance for Global SMS and IDD 008/018 calls (Inclusive of local airtime charges of an IDD call).

The Happy $128 bonus balances will expire in 50 days from the day of top up. To roll over any unused Happy $128 value, customer will have to do another Happy $128 top-up.

If the customer does not do a Happy $128 top-up within the 50 days, the Happy $128 balances will expire and all subsequent charges will be deducted from the card's main balance instead.

Can you guess by now which prepaid card I am using and will continue to use?