Change of M1 Plan

I was talking to the girls last night and the conversation went on to phone subscription plans. Oh, cos I finally found out M1 has started selling the Blackberry Pearl. It is priced at $198 (2 years contract on BB and Voice plans) or $498 (2 years contract on BB plan) or $698 without any plan or contract.

That is so darn expensive!

So the girls found out my current plan is very expensive too as I typically pay around $80-ish per month, lowest ever is around $60-ish. I was quite loathe to change my plan 3-4 years ago when free incoming calls were the rage as I didn't feel the plan was attractive enough. Then time just passed by and I just forgot about it.

I am currently on the OK Flex plan which is no longer in existance (another reason why I didn't want to change cos I can never switch back after that). So what is the OK Flex plan?

The subscription is $50 (minus 45% discount making it $27.50) per month and I get $45 worth of SMSs and talk time. But the reason why it became higher than the $27.50 per month is because I always exceeded the $45 and had to top up. Based on last month's bill, my talktime was $52.12 and SMSs at $27.65, so I incurred additional charges of $34.77. Then I have my roaming subscription and caller-ID display charges. But I think the reason for the high talk time was due to the events I was handling in June and July - lots of calls from suppliers and clients and colleagues.

So yeah, my friends were all telling me last night I need to change my plan cos they are paying around $30+ on average and most people receive in-coming calls more than calling out (well, except when I have events and need to contact people).

Checked M1 website for the various plans - there are so MANY now! And I have decided on the SunTalk Plus IDD 80. It is at $28 per month and here is what is included:
*Free incoming calls until 31 December 2009
*Free local calls on weekend (max 100 mins)
* 5 for 5 Global SMS daily
*Free IDD 021 calls to 15 countries (residential and mobile line in Bangladesh, Brunei, Canada, China, Hong Kong, India, Laos, Macau, Malaysia, Puerto Rico, Russia, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and USA) but exclude outgoing call charges at $0.15/min.
*Free 80 mins local outgoing calls
*500 free SMS

The new plan will be in effect starting tomorrow and hopefully this will cut my phone cost to below $50 and that I do not exceed the outgoing call charges. At $0.15/min, it can add up too. But I guess it is marginally better than my OK Flex as the charges were at $0.20/min (weekdays) and $0.05/min (weekends and weeknights) and I think my calls tend to be during day time due to work.

Next stop: Blackberry Pearl (still considering)