Phone Contracts

[ruberella]

Hi Everyone,

I'm moving out to SG in a couple of weeks. I'm curious to know what's the best phone network out there and whether setting up a contract is straight forward?

I have a phone that is unlocked to any network in the UK, if I had a SIM only contract in SG would this phone work?


Thanks.

[zzm9980]

Singtel is generally the best for mobile phone.

The only reason you'd want to consider Starhub is if you insist on getting their TV package and wanted a bundled discount.

The only reason for M1 is if you want pre-paid only LTE data (which you don't). The other two only offer 3G for pre-paid, LTE with contract.


Since they're going to try and hook you into a three-in-one package for mobile, TV, and home internet, shop it around that. All of their internet packages are the same. The only differentiator is mobile service (Singtel best) and TV (Singtel worst).

My suggestion if you want quality service is to not take a bundle. Just take Singtel mobile, then if your home has fiber available (Google for "OpenNet Singapore" for a tool which will let you check your address) to go with an independent like MyRepublic or ViewQuest for your home internet.

[nutnut]

Agree with SSM on this

Mobile/4G - Singtel
Broadband - ViewQwest
TV - none of them, they're all sh*te!

For TV, sign up to Hulu plus and Netflix ($8 USD each) and use your Android TV box (ViewQwest TV) provided with your super fast (300+ MBPS) fibre from VQ.

Don't be convinced to get MIO even if you like football, it's absolutely dreadful!

[TandD]

So you wouldn't recommend Starhub? We were thinking of getting a home phone, broadband bundle and then 2 mobile contracts as there's 20% on each mobile with new phones. Few people said Starhub was better than Singtel. (not too bothered about tv packages as we don't watch much.

[zzm9980]

So you wouldn't recommend Starhub? We were thinking of getting a home phone, broadband bundle and then 2 mobile contracts as there's 20% on each mobile with new phones. Few people said Starhub was better than Singtel. (not too bothered about tv packages as we don't watch much.

As of when I last posted, they didn't have LTE and I had bad luck with their reception.

Their home broadband was by far the worst on the island.

Plus, their name is just stupid.

[TandD]

hmmm, food for thought, thank you.

[Strong Eagle]

I had Starhub home broadband and it delivered consistently reliable high speeds... Watten Estate area of town.

I also used the "free" mobile data USB dongle that came with the home broadband package. I agree that Starhub's coverage is not as good as Singtel's... and I was able to use my data dongle in lots of places to run my laptop... much better than the inferior so called "island wide" wifi.

[JR8]

So you wouldn't recommend Starhub? We were thinking of getting a home phone, broadband bundle and then 2 mobile contracts as there's 20% on each mobile with new phones. Few people said Starhub was better than Singtel. (not too bothered about tv packages as we don't watch much.

As of when I last posted, they didn't have LTE and I had bad luck with their reception.
Their home broadband was by far the worst on the island.
Plus, their name is just stupid.

I think the best starting point is to define how you expect to use your phone, TV, etc., and then seek how best to do that. And also what kind of phone you require to enable that.

I'd be very cautious of bundled packages. And it's absolutely par for the course that everything will come apparently dripping in discounts - whereas what's actually happening is they're hoisting you by the nadges from a set of gallows of your own construction.

We've been through this before. Some years back we took out an internet/TV/mob package with one of the major providers. IIRC it gave my wife a discount on a new phone. When it came time to leave we had something like 5-6 months left on the contract, and the cancellation clause was horrendous... but there's nothing you can do. [Your penalty, funds a new customer's 'discounts'].

So, be cautious what you're signing up for. Previous discussions here prove getting unexpectedly caught by major contractual penalties is not uncommon.

We don't watch locally available TV here, as a) most of it isn't worth watching b) anything worth watching here we can simply access for free from the web.

For the home phone. I think we're with Singtel. We have the bare-bones service, and a separate cheap 'over-ride' service for international calls, that gets billed to my wife's CC. Naturally you can sign up (again!) to various international call packages, but they're nowhere near as good as you can get from a 3rd party over-ride service.

For internet we're on fibre with M1. The service is pretty good. I don't down/upload big stuff, just general browsing usually. It seems to have something of a habit of the connection being patchy between c. 8.30-9.30am in the mornings. No idea what that's about, but it's just a minor irritant.

Mobile. I'm on Starhub prepaid which does all that I need of it. I brought my phone with me from Europe, and it does everything I need (and more).

So you'll see the theme here of trying to get away from bundles as much as possible...

[the lynx]

Approach the providers in the descending order:

1. Singtel

2. Starhub

3. M1

I've b*tched a lot about Starhub and M1 in this forum before. Moved over to Singtel after that and it was good.

[TandD]

Thank you JR8 for your thoughts there, rather helpful. Our usage is a little similar to yours.

TV not fussed about,

Broadband to browse mainly and the occasional download though nothing huge.

We skype with family so basic home phone is adequate.

We brought 2 mobiles with us but both need replacing as they're both very old and one doesn't accept Sim card here anyway. We are currently using Singtel prepaid but after one longish conversation, on an incoming call, it already cost me $7. Can't get my head around the fact that here you pay for incoming calls, I'm so used to only being charged for calls that I make in the UK.

Will look at Singtel for mobile (I'd really like a Samsung S4, had S3 previously and love it), and Viewquest for broadband?

[rajagainstthemachine]

Thank you JR8 for your thoughts there, rather helpful. Our usage is a little similar to yours.

TV not fussed about,

Broadband to browse mainly and the occasional download though nothing huge.

We skype with family so basic home phone is adequate.

We brought 2 mobiles with us but both need replacing as they're both very old and one doesn't accept Sim card here anyway. We are currently using Singtel prepaid but after one longish conversation, on an incoming call, it already cost me $7. Can't get my head around the fact that here you pay for incoming calls, I'm so used to only being charged for calls that I make in the UK.

Will look at Singtel for mobile (I'd really like a Samsung S4, had S3 previously and love it), and Viewquest for broadband?

A few things to consider.

1. head to race course road, find some shops selling mobiles, there is one in particular thats very very busy naranjan electronics or something,
pick up a phone from there, they sell you phones at cheap prices with no contracts, I have bought a couple from there.
this enabled me to get around having a phone contract, its been 2.5 years since I'm still on prepaid.

2. when you make long distance calls here are some options

a. skype credits

b. calling card usually worth 10$ and worth around approx 2 hours of talk time

c. check if you can set up call forwarding from UK to Singapore, have a relative call you on a local UK number thats been set up to forward calls to your Singapore number.

d. to use your prepaid credits for IDD calling prefix 019 to an international number before dialing, the charges will be equivalent to calling card rates.

[x9200]

Thank you JR8 for your thoughts there, rather helpful. Our usage is a little similar to yours.

TV not fussed about,

Broadband to browse mainly and the occasional download though nothing huge.

We skype with family so basic home phone is adequate.

We brought 2 mobiles with us but both need replacing as they're both very old and one doesn't accept Sim card here anyway. We are currently using Singtel prepaid but after one longish conversation, on an incoming call, it already cost me $7. Can't get my head around the fact that here you pay for incoming calls, I'm so used to only being charged for calls that I make in the UK.

Will look at Singtel for mobile (I'd really like a Samsung S4, had S3 previously and love it), and Viewquest for broadband?

Your profile matches mine. I own both Starhub and Singtel, mobile broadband and mobile voice, few lines (phones, ipads stuff like this). No difference, no problems of any sorts, already for a number of years. Customer service IMHO slightly better with Starhub. My advice: chose the one that better suits your budget/expected usage, you will unlikely see any differences.

[Steve1960]

Me and the wife both have no contract prepay Singtel SIM cards (recently changed to 4G). Each month we buy a couple of data talk 22 top up's at 22 SGD each and that has been sufficient data, sms and talk time for the last year at least probably more. With home wifi and office wifi and so many Internet chat apps we have not needed any more than that.

Virtually zero phone calls back to the UK, use Skype and email only.

Home phone is a free Singtel line bundled with the Internet and TV options. It never rings and we never dial out on it.

We have 200mbps Singtel fibre and have no complaints whatsoever. Fast, reliable but not the cheapest out there I am sure.

I have to disagree about Singtel MIO TV EPL comments. I think the football coverage is excellent and I have had nothing but ongoing frustration with all these other 'free' Internet services. MIO TV football is just press and watch. Look at the recently posted topic on this subject. I myriad of web site options and comments like 'poor streaming while the game is live but if you wait a couple of hours you can get HD quality'! On MIO I just watch it live, no drama, no drop out, no slow video etc etc

I do agree that the entertainment program package is pretty weak but I think that's true of most TV these days unless you like reality TV and American sit com's. I have a VPN box and subscription for UK TV and I rarely ever watch it these days because the programs are so awful!

[x9200]

This would also depend on the personal interests. If I watch anything on TV it is mostly the educational stuff and Singtel for this has only a few NG channels. Starhub has them all, Discovery, History, CI, BBC Knowledge etc. (~20 channels) are there.

[TandD]

x9200 That's useful to know, thank you. Though we don't watch TV much, we are homeschooling so having more educational channels is definitely a factor in helping us choose. Hoping to move to our new place in a week or so, so have time to consider all these points.