TALK must be practically free, and text must not be taxing on the pocket too.
That seems to be the recipe whipped up by the three major telcos in seeking to ace it with students and national servicemen.
In fact, the competition is so stiff that the telcos have matched each other dollar for dollar in plan pricing. (See table.)
Their plans cater all the way to the heavy users of talktime, text messages (SMS) and multimedia messages (MMS). It is not uncommon for students to send more than 1,000 SMS messages a month.
Senior research manager of IT research company IDC Asia Pacific, Alex Chau, said that competition among the telcos has risen sharply with the roll-out of mobile number portability in Singapore in June, as consumers can now change operators at will without having to lose their number.
He said: "Students will also enjoy 'special treatment' from telcos because they are more likely to use multimedia services such as 3G surfing, as well as multimedia video and music services."
This year, SingTel, M1 and StarHub have come up with attractive deals - costing between $25.68 and $82.93 - for students 16 years and above.
For $25.68, for instance, StarHub's plan offers students 200 minutes of free talktime, unlimited SMSes to any local number, and 12 months of free caller ID.
Apart from their own lower-priced plans, both M1 and SingTel also offer top-of-the-range plans at $82.93.
These have much more generous free talktime than in the basic plans.
Both SingTel and M1 also, separately, offer Campus Calling, a free service for which students enjoy additional free airtime when they call any number from within their campus.
Full-time national servicemen (NSFs) are also entitled to the three telcos' student plans.
High value, good take-up StarHub's head of mobile services, Anil Nihalani, said that the youth segment is highly valued by the telcos.
This is because "communicating on the mobile phone is one of their top activities", he said.
Agreeing, M1's chief marketing officer, P. Subramaniam, said this segment will continue to be an integral part of its business focus.
"More people are owning mobile phones at a younger age and are in constant interaction with their family and friends," he said.
"In a saturated market, this is the most likely segment with growth potential."
He added that mobile number portability has not "visibly" affected M1. "The number of free student benefit sign-ups has remained stable over the past few months."
StarHub's Anil said it has seen "a good take-up among younger customers, including students, since mobile number portability was implemented".
All three telcos reported positive feedback on their student plans and offerings.
Derrick Heng, SingTel's director of segment marketing and marketing communications, attributed it to its "extra talktime and free unlimited SMS offered".
Loo Jiamin, 19, told Digital Life she might switch to a StarHub student plan when her current plan expires because of the unlimited free SMS to any local number offered by StarHub.
The first-year communications and new media student at the National University of Singapore said she currently pays excess SMS charges of between $30 and $40 each month.
"Unlimited SMSes to any number will be very useful because I won't be restricted to only sending text messages within my telco," she said. NSF John Wang, 19, is also hoping to capitalise on the student offers when his plan expires in a few months' time.
"I heard that we can also get the offers because StarHub and SingTel sometimes come over to my army camp to promote their student plans," he said.
He said that he is considering a student plan with unlimited free SMSes.
He added: "Campus calls will not be that useful to me since I am not in a school now."
Alvin Lim is an intern at The Sunday Times
This story was originally published in The Straits Times Digital Life on 27 August 2008.
