It looks like SingTel Mobile has mucked up again. In the late afternoon, I found that my mobile phone had no signal. After rebooting, it seemed to be okay. So perhaps it was my phone. Then my colleague noted that he had no 3G data connection on his SingTel Mobile line. Later in the evening, for much of my trip home, my phone again had no signal at all. When it did, it had no data. Eventually, I got to find out that people have been calling me and were not able to get through. The callers were not on SingTel Mobile network and they got a network busy message calling my phone.

Back home, a quick check in twitter-world confirmed that others are twittering about their problems on SingTel Mobile too. So it is not that the few odd cases that I am personally aware of. So it seems that SingTel Mobile network was mucked up for a couple of hours from this late afternoon to some time in the evening. It isn’t even the first time. I blogged about it previously (which interestingly shows up as the number one search result for “singtel network down” on Google right now).

Let’s say those few hours of downtime today amounted to approximately 2 hours. That’s 0.023% down time, or 99.977% uptime. That’s bad. Phones are supposed to achieve 5 9’s… 99.999% uptime.

There’s nothing much more to say than I’ve already posted about previously. I just want to rant a little about the inconvenience of having a working mobile phone when you need it.

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If SingTel plays their cards right, I think they’re going to win lots of customers. Their win of the English Premier League broadcast rights in Singapore last week surprised many people. The immediate reaction of most people was one of worry of how much it would cost them to watch soccer in the coming years. It costs quite a lot to watch soccer with StarHub. Will they have to pay just as much with SingTel? Or perhaps more, considering that SingTel must have put in a very high bid to win the rights, and would thus naturally have to recoup their investments? Many people were concerned that the telco competition could spell trouble for consumers.

Well, SingTel has announced their prices, and it seems they’re playing fair. Their prices are reasonable. You just need to pay to watch EPL if that’s all you want, and it will cost just $24.61 (inclusive of GST). No need to sign up any basic tier. You will have to get (and pay) for a phone line though.

A couple of years ago, it would be taken for granted that every household would have a SingTel phone line anyway. But nowadays, that is no longer the case. Some households either have no fixed phone lines at all, or they’ve gone to StarHub’s Digital Voice. So it will cost a nominal one-time cost to prep up your home for MioTV (that’s SingTel’s pay TV service), not unlike the setup, activation and installation charges for StarHub cable TV, as well as a monthly subscription for the phone line, which is much less than the basic tier of channels for StarHub’s cable TV.

It sounds like SingTel fixed phone lines are going to have a comeback, at least for people who have to have MioTV.

I’m sure the fixed phone line business doesn’t turn over a big profit. But look at how StarHub has been cleverly bundling cable TV, fixed/mobile broadband, and fixed/mobile phone services. SingTel has been loosing ground. Most people don’t really care about MioTV. For fixed broadband and mobile phone services, most people just go to wherever the best deal is. StarHub has the upper hand of bundling with cable TV, as their cable TV does offer good programmes. I imagine SingTel will use their EPL win to their advantage to win over not just soccer fans, but also mobile phone and fixed broadband users.

So with SingTel and StarHub offering somewhat equivalent range of services, I’m sure we’ll see competition heating up. This ought to be good for consumers.

M1 will be in trouble.

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It happened when I upgraded my phone with M1 previously. It happened when I got a Hub Station with StarHub. Now the same thing happens with SingTel when I got my N97. I don’t know why these companies have to muck up your bill when you go through an “equipment upgrade”. They do the equivalent of terminating your service, and then reinstating the service. Since the service is simply being retained, why bother with the paper charade?

I just received my first phone bill after I got my Nokia N97 last month. The bill amount looked about the same. Slightly more, actually, but only by about $5 – $10. I would have put it down to some adjustments due to the phone upgrade. I noted the bill reflected the mess of services disconnections and reinstatements.

But somehow this time I decided to inspect the individual line items more carefully, and thus, I discovered some real problems with my bill. SingTel had disconnected and left disconnected my BroadBand on Mobile service! I was really annoyed. I worked out the sums, and found that I was being charged about $52 extra for excess data usage. The other services on my bill had actually become cheaper or free due to the new terms of my corporate plan (which I was not aware of, but I’m nonetheless pleased). My bill should have been substantially cheaper, but it had been inflated by the $52 of excess data usage charges. I called up SingTel first thing the next morning.

The customer service representative explained to me that since I am already on MobileM@ail Plus (the new service that comes with the N97 promotion), there was no need for the BroadBand on Mobile. I quite bluntly pointed out that the former had 10MB of quota, while the latter had 50GB of data. They are a whole lot different.

So the customer service representative then offered to upgrade the MobileM@il Plus service to a higher plan that includes 500MB of data. Yah, right, 500MB vs 50GB.  I wasn’t comfortable with the 500MB quota. He tried to reason that a normal user would not use that much data. I told him I do. I’m sure if he looked at the bill, he would see that I had exceeded the 500MB.

What followed subsequently was a long argument. The customer service representative tried to explain that the BroadBand on Mobile plan I had was no longer offered as a VAS. I know. But that’s not my problem. I pointed out that I did not ask for the service to be disconnected. We went on and on for some time. I told him to just escalate it to someone to deal with it.

He called back. They were willing to backdate the reactivation of this non-existent VAS for me to three days ago. Nice. They were also going to waive the data charges for the previous billing cycle (i.e. the charges in the current bill). Great. But that left me with one day that I would not be covered. I pressed further that something be done about this day. Waive it, for example, if you cannot backdate the VAS reactivation to cover that day. That led to another long-winded argument about how the system doesn’t allow them to do it, they cannot make the adjustment, etc. Not my problem at all, I told him. Can he just take this up to an intelligent human being who can exercise some judgement and do the right thing? As an IT person, I can appreciate there are “system problems”. As a customer, it is not my problem. Get a human to deal with the system.

Great. He called back. Settled. They can now magically reverse everything, so that I enjoy the equivalent of not having my service being changed at all.

Oh, since I was already engaged in an argument, I started to nitpick on my voice call charges too. Apparently, I overshot my free 100 mins of outgoing quota by 9 mins. But they did not credit back my “free” 100 mins fully. The fellow explained it is because the free outgoing calls would be pro-rated due to the disconnection and reactivation. Sure. But if you chop up a billing cycle into two parts, then the first part plus the second part must equal to the whole month cycle right? Which still means 100 mins of free outgoing calls! However, there was a discrepancy of about $2. This was eventually resolved too.

The story doesn’t end here, really, because there was also another matter of 10 cents being charged to me for something the SingTel Shop guy told me is free, even though I didn’t want it.

Sigh. It took up a lot of my time. I’m sure it is also not productive use of their staff’s time too. Can these telcos just make things simpler for everybody?

If you are upgrading your phone, you should check your subsequent phone bills carefully too.

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Hello, Singapore. SingTel has announced their iPhone 3G prices. You could get the phone free, if you’re willing to shell out $205 every month for the next 24 months. The prices are high, but not unexpected (see here and here). Once M1 and StarHub get into the fray, the prices might fall. Or it might drop anyway soon after launch, because Singaporeans are not going to fall simply for the iPhone “wow” factor.

So here are the details. SingTel has introduced three new voice+data plans to go with the iPhone 3G. At $56 a month, the iPhone 3G goes for $348 and $508 (8GB and 16GB models respectively); At $95 a month, the iPhone 3G goes for $49 and $208 (8GB and 16GB models respectively); At $205 a month, the iPhone 3G is free. All these are with a 24 month contract.

Subscribers on existing voice-only plans can also get the subsidized iPhone 3G. It’s $698 and $848 for the iPhone 3G (8GB and 16GB models respectively) with the $25.68 plan; $348 and $508 with the $48.15 plan; $49 and $208 with the $82.93 plan; Free for the $192.60 plan. These have a 24 month contract too, and you’d probably need to add on a data service on top of the voice plan, otherwise your iPhone 3G will be data-less (or cost a bomb to use data without a data plan).

How does the iPhone 3G price stack up with other phones in Singapore? Let’s analyse the numbers a little.

With a $25.68 voice plan on a 24-month contract, I can get the N95 8GB for about $628. Total cost over 24 months is $1244.32. The iPhone 3G, however, will cost me $1314.32 (8GB model) or $1464.32 (16GB model) over 24 months with the same plan.

The N95 8GB definitely beats the iPhone 3G in functionality, although the “wow” factor award probably goes to the iPhone 3G.

What will Singapore buyers choose?

The iPhone 3G goes on sale at SingTel’s ComCentre headquarters at the stroke of midnight on 22nd August 2008. It’ll be fun to see if queues form up like elsewhere in the world. Singaporeans, afterall, love queueing (yeah, remember the queueing and fighting over Hello Kitty at MacDonalds).

M1 and StarHub will get their hands on the iPhone 3G in time for Christmas. This gives SingTel a little head start. I imagine there will be a price correction shortly before M1 and StarHub jumps onboard, but not before diehard iPhone 3G fans have signed themselves over to SingTel (at least for the next two years).

Note: All prices where are in Singapore Dollars, unless otherwise stated.

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After much speculation over the last many months, it is now officially confirmed that SingTel will launch the iPhone 3G in Singapore on 22 August 2008. The same day will also see the iPhone 3G launched in about 20 other countries. The Reuters report of SingTel’s announcement said nothing more. I guess the next biggest question on everyone’s mind is: How much?

There is one piece of hearsay floating on the net that says there will be two options on pricing: customers paying for a more expensive data plan may be able to get the 8GB or 16GB iPhone 3G free, while customers opting for a more inexpensive data plan may have to pay a monthly fee for the phone. A monthly fee? I suppose this really means an installment repayment plan spread across a fixed number of months. It doesn’t seem right to be paying a perpetual “fee” to own the iPhone 3G.

As you might know, the iPhone 3G 8GB and 16GB models are relatively cheap at US$199 and US$299 respectively in the US with a mobile contract, and US$599 and US$699 respectively without a contract. Based on the US non-contract price, we might make a guess that the non-contract price in Singapore would be about S$1000. This is consistent with the Sunday Times article I mentioned some time ago that put the Singapore pricing at between S$500 to S$1000.

With mobile phone contracts here offering discounts of perhaps up to S$500… we could perhaps expect the up-front cost of the iPhone 3G to be in the region of S$500 (or the equivalent in whatever pricing package they come up with). SingTel being the exclusive retailer of the iPhone 3G in Singapore initially will mean that their pricing could be set at a premium.

This is all speculation of course. We have just about 10 days to know when SingTel officially launches the iPhone 3G here.

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Has anyone noticed problems with the SingTel Mobile network this evening? I just started to observe the problem at around 18:55 in the evening, although I’ve heard from others that the problem had started earlier. Basically, my phone could not connect to the network. No signal at all. I was getting out of my house, and some 5 minutes drive away, I got a signal, but a SMS text message I was trying to send did not get sent.

At that point, I tried to make a phone call. The call was connected. But shortly later, I lost signal again. Then it came back again. The SMS text message was still unsuccessful. Mobile broadband Internet surfing did not work. Other people have reported a combination of various problems.

In general, things seemed to have gone back to normal by about 19:40. But I’ve just noticed right now as I type, already after 21:00, that my phone can’t pick up a 3G connection. There is a normal GSM (2.5G) connection, but no go for UMTS (3G). I gave up waiting to speak to a person at 1626; I imagine the hotline must be overwhelmed from customer calls.

We are definitely quite dependent on mobile phone networks. A downtime like this causes great inconveniences. It might have been worse considering if you had to make an emergency call, and the call could not be connected.

It’s scary to think about disruptions to critical infrastructure. A fire at a substation in Somerset Road can somehow cause over-voltage conditions in several areas around Singapore. An outage at one data centre in Singapore can cause massive disruptions to many online government systems. Are we getting complacent about the availability and robustness of our infrastructure?

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The news is out. SingTel will be selling the Apple iPhone from September. I posted earlier this year about the possibility after The Age reported Optus’ exclusive deal to sell the iPhone in Australia. Well, it’s still not clear right now whether it will be the 3G version or not, but I guess if we’re talking about September, a 3G or 3.5G version will likely already be launched by Apple. Personally I’m not terribly excited about the iPhone. But it will be interesting to watch how the Singapore market reacts to the iPhone’s introduction.

Edit: The news of SingTel’s deal came out on CNA. (I know, the article does say SingTel has refused to confirm or deny.)

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I finally succumbed to temptation and found myself having to get the latest Nokia N95 8GB phone. So after much online research, including comparing telco price plans, I finally trotted down to a SingTel hello! store over the weekend. The crowd was horrendous (blogged here). I eventually gave up on that Saturday night, and returned back before the opening time, 11am, the next morning.

To my surprise… there was a long queue already formed. What was happening? SingTel wasn’t giving away free phones eh? And there was nothing like a super-sale or anything of that sort. (The M1 store was just as badly packed, and the Starhub road show was still hopelessly sparse.) Ok noted the original N95 selling at $398 was drawing the crowds, and it turns out it was already out-of-stock on Saturday. Notices were posted outside the shop but it seems like few people took note of them.

Fortunately anyway, it was still early. The queue wasn’t that bad (I was like in the 22nd position), and it didn’t take me too long to get my queue number and eventually to be served at the counter. Overall, I think the experience at SingTel was not unlike at M1. Friendly staff, the buying process at the counter, the re-queuing for payment, etc. I thought I’d mention since some people (including myself) have the notion that SingTel is an unfriendly stuck-up corporate giant out to bully customers and competitors. (Of course just one non-negative experience like this isn’t going to change my whole perspective instantly, and notice I say “non-negative” rather than “positive”…)

Just for those interested. I jumped ship because:

1. M1 refused to give me a handset upgrade voucher. Time and time again, after having been their customer for perhaps 10 years, I have always had to demand upgrade vouchers. I have had to point out that my friends, my relatives, etc are all getting vouchers. Only then did they bulge. But guess what, this time around, they claimed they “do not offer handset vouchers anymore”. Fine.
2. It seems new customers are offered more “free” stuffs in their mobile plans. Loyal customers are disadvantaged. Yes, noted this is the same with SingTel and Starhub, but I haven’t been a SingTel customer so I’ve still got a chance to demand to continue getting the free stuffs. Besides, with free permanent number retention, it is easy to jump ship.
3. It also comes down to $$$. M1’s price for the N95 8GB is over the roof. SingTel has further promotion offers combined with mobile broadband that were useful to me, and gave me further handset discounts.

So there you are, no more M1 for me. I think the only thing I’d miss is free weekend outgoing calls. Why doesn’t SingTel offer that!

The N95 8GB is new, so it is still relatively expensive. But I reasoned that, my existing N73’s high resale value isn’t going to hold much longer. In fact, I discovered that 2nd hand phone dealers are actually offering no more, and sometimes less, than what the 3 telcos are giving. On top of that, the 2nd hand dealers are expecting a handset in pristine condition and a full boxed package with all accessories, whereas the telcos are happy to accept just the phone and the charger in working condition. I get to keep the data cable, headset, charger adapter and memory card!

So considering the trade-in value and further discount for data subscription, I pay less than $400 up-front for the handset. There is also interest-free installment. The free value-added services for new subscribers are worth about $100 in savings (compared to having stuck with M1). And what about the handful of accessories I did not have to give back for the trade-in? So all-in-all, this new handset costs me somewhat less than $300. (Note: I signed up for a cheap $22 voice plan… so it is not like my handset was discounted by a super-expensive contract plan.)

Had I opted not to get number retention, I could also get rid of pesky telemarketers!

Change is good.

ps: A word on the battery. One of the biggest shortcoming of the original N95 has to be the short battery life. Many reviewers and owners have complained that it lasts about a day at most. Well… my N95 8GB has been running 16 hours now, the battery is still 7/7, despite “heavy use” such as GPS (couldn’t lock while I was indoor last night, and I was indoor because it was raining hard), and wireless (trying to figure out connection to WLAN at work), etc.

pps: Ok it’s now coming to about 27 hours of “heavy use”. About 1/7 bar left. I played a lot with GPS (never had GPS before you see), and mucked around quite long to get the 3G data connection working with my Mac OS X. I hope to drain the battery flat tonight so I can do another full re-charge.

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“Just one Zinger burger to go.”

“Okay. Having here?”

“No, to go.”

“Having here?”

Okay, she doesn’t understand “to go”. Alright, perhaps most of us would say “take away” or even “packet”.

Singaporeans are shopping too much. I went to this “neighbourhood” shopping centre. It’s one of those smaller places (no cinemas…). But car park was full. I wanted to check out the N95 8GB at SingTel hello! store, maybe even to get one. But goodness, the queue to get a queue number was so long! Can’t they do something about it?

I thought M1 was bad enough. You also queue to get a number, though thankfully not that long, but then you’d still have to wait maybe 1.5 hrs. That happened for me at Paragon, more than once, when I went there to shop for a handset.

Funnily enough, last night while I noticed both the SingTel hello! store and M1shop was so congested and overflowing with people, the Starhub roadshow at the atrium area was quite sparse. Starhub’s just not getting enough customers?

(I might consider Starhub if only they had better coverage. Both my workplace and home don’t get no signal from Starhub!)

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