In this week’s Digital Life, I ran a story about how VOIP services like pfingo, Skype and mediaring are now moving to the mobile phone. The value proposition is simple – you can pay two to four cents per minute to make calls from your mobile phone in Singapore to any mobile or landline number here. Compared to the 15 cents per minute we are paying, it’s pretty amazing.
The stumbling block used to be the high cost of data charges because you are essentially logging into the 3G/3.5G mobile Internet (which works out to be about 40-50 cents per minute – that’s because the bit rate is about 16kbps so when you talk for a minute that means you will be using like 16 x 60 divided by 8 which gives you 120 KB. Since the rate is about .35 cents per KB of data, you end up paying 40-50 cents per minute of VOIP talk time.
But now, with unlimited 3G plans going for like $19 and StarHub bundling their 3G and cable broadband together, mobile data access is now affordable.
I have been using pfingo a lot recently, which gives me a prefix-3 number for free. So I can call from my mobile using pfingo, and the experience is just like making a normal mobile call. Instead of pressing the green call button I press options then Internet call. I can even open my normal phone book and do the same thing to call a contact. No fuss like Skype where you have to crack your head to import contacts over.
Iam paying like $100 to $120 per month to my mobile operator for my phone bill. With these VOIP mobile services I can seriously cut my phone bill. The problem is I think you can’t port your mobile number to a VOIP mobile service. When that happens, you can be sure I will make the switch.
username:
sgp
password:
mediaring
The above pfingo account will prove that pfingo will not bear to cancel (including starhub mobile number) any account.
This is true even at the expenses of losing one starhub mobile customer.
Remember:
Do not register your life-long mobile number or you may regret.
You may pay S$8 for a S$10 Singtel prepaid card. Use the Singtel number to register for your pfingo account to protect the privacy of your life-long mobile number.
Feel free to break pfingo terms and conditions as they will rather have a growing membership than to terminate any account.
There is no free credit. It is an empty promise by pfingo to boast their pfingo memberships.
It is currently not possible to allow true number port from the mobile number range to VOIP or even fixed line, or vice versa. It took iDA so many years to finally mandate true mobile number port: to allow true “any” number port would require another decade to truly implement.
Ok the unlimited $20 broadband has a data SIM card, you can put that same SIM card into your phone and you will be able to connect to the Internet, including making VOIP calls.
However, you cannot connect to your normal voice network so you will then have to switch SIM cards. There are dual SIM card phones which in theory you should be able to put both inside (there is one from Samsung) at the same time.
The telcos are obviously afraid that mobile VOIP will eat into their voice business so they only offer unlimited plans for the USB dongle which is to access the Net on your laptop. It’s really the same SIM card, and works on both USB dongle and mobile phone.
Hi,
As a M1 subscriber, I am paying $10.70 for Sunsurf Plus for 10Mb a month. I called them when I read your article re the unlimited 3G for about $20. I was told that there is no such thing as unlimited 3G/GPRS, only unlimited broadband. The $20 broadband is the small dongle that need USB to connect to laptop. That will kind of defeat the purpose, right?
Thanks n Regards
Quek
hi,
well, i am aware that callback methodology is based on voip.