We live in an age where mobility is necessary. Mobile data usage continues to increase and in highly developed areas such as Singapore, the trend just continues to go up. In part, mobile operators contribute to this increasing trend by continuously upgrading their networks with more capacity to facilitate more bandwidth and lower latency. To facilitate this benefit for the user, mobile plans, introduced sim only mobile data plans and increased the overall data allowance that consumers get. This leads to the question: Are we wasteful with mobile subscriptions and data usage?
How Much Data Do You Need?
To switch to a better mobile plan, you need to understand how much data you need. Very few people track their mobile data usage. Even less think about sim only mobile data plans when in reality that is exactly what they need. The first step is to look at data usage before swapping to a different plan. You need to look at your historical monthly data usage and calculate the average. Your mobile data needs may indeed change and you may require more data in the future. For this reason, you should add a safety margin of about 15% to 20% to ensure that you have enough data included with your plan to cover eventual fluctuations in usage.
This exercise can also help determine if you are wasteful or not with your data usage. If you have for example a data plan that includes 60 GB of data but you only use 20 GB, you are paying for 40 GB of data that you never use. Specifically, you are wasting money on a service that you do not need. Instead of going for sim only mobile data plans, you are paying for a subscription that you do not need. Most subscribers also have loads of talk time included and SMS messages. While talk time may have some utility, these days, SMS is rarely used to communicate with someone. They are used so rarely that it does not make sense to pay to have an allowance of several hundred free SMS messages per month.
Know Your Needs
First of all, you should consider if you truly need talk time and SMS. If you do not need either of these, you should look at different plans. Also, you may want to think about your current device. Most people get locked into contracts because they wanted to get a cheap smartphone along with it. It is a good way of getting a good deal on a smartphone but you end up with a steep monthly bill for a couple of years. If you do not need a new device, have barely any use for talk time and SMS, you should look at https://www.circles.life/sg/plans/. You will be surprised at how affordable they can be if you get something that is more in tune with your needs. Mobile subscriptions in Singapore are anything but cheap. It would make sense to get on a contract that saves you hundreds of dollars per year while giving up on services that you truly need.
Taylor is a freelance SEO copywriter and blogger. His areas of expertise include technology, pop culture, and marketing.
