Finally jump ship from expensive Singtel postpaid

Over the years singapore telco has been increasing their postpaid plan price. With the advent of 5G, the prices has gone to unreasonable level above 55 sgd per month such that the cost of the plan is not able to subsidize by the cheaper cost of the iphones

So in Apr 2022 i decided to jump ship to TPG 10 dollar plan. However TPG speed and coverage left much to be desired. Hence in 2023, i decided to change to Singtel MVNO that offers cheap 5g data with data roaming to neighbouring countries.

A brief history of mobile data use

3g is the beginning of 12gb generous data given when speed is still between 3mbps to 14 mbps sometime around  2009

Once 4g began in 2012, the data started to be drastically reduced to 2gb. People demand for data during this period is still manageable. By 2018 I think the usage is ard 10gb per month. That is also when Singtel changed its flexi 2012 plan to combo plan 2014 and then to combo xo 2018.

Then comes simba and many mvno in 2018 and 2019 which flooded the market with 50-100gb data in the mobile plan. The data explosion comes with a big drop in the mobile price plan between 10-20 sgd per month. Major telcos are slow to react besides they are busy building the first 5g network in 2020-2021. 

Sometime in 2018 the concept of mobile data roaming is becoming affordable. However due to COVID ended in 2022 that we truly embrace the usage data roaming broadly.

By 2024, I think ard 40% of customers has switched to the minor telco which leads to a drop in profits for the major telco.