Please port my number to pfingo
Posted by Oo Gin Lee on June 25, 2008
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.
a said
hi,
well, i am aware that callback methodology is based on voip.
Quek said
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
Oo Gin Lee said
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.
Yam Lim said
how do I use 3G connection, and make a Pfingo call?
Alfred Siew said
Hi, thanks for the comment. The site has moved to http://www.techgoondu.com. Please check there for more tech news!