Make way for an all-new, all-different telecommunications company that threatens to disrupt the mobile service industry in Singapore.
Forget the traditional notions of queuing up at stores, signing two-year service contracts and getting bogged down by cramped data limits — new telco Circles.Life promises to be a fully digital experience that sports modular data-centric services.
What that means is that customers only pay for what they want, rather than paying for whatever plans the telco has on offer. What that means is that consumers have bigger control over their bills and mobile service usage — the amount of data, call minutes, text messages, payment methods and more are all chosen by users.
How it works is that everyone will have a base plan at $28 a month that already comes with generous utilities — 3GB of data, 100 minutes of calling, 4G speeds, and caller number displays. Need more usage of the interwebz for that particular month? Add $6 for another gigabyte of data. Making more calls? Just top up another $4 per 100 additional minutes.
“We are here to bring the power back to the digital customer. Circles.Life’s innovative platform allows our customers to experience telco in a way they’ve always wanted,” said Circles.Life co-founder Rameez Ansar.
The telco is also said to be the first one to be fully digital, meaning everything will be done online. Ordering of SIM cards, building mobile service plans and troubleshooting are all carried out through Circles.Life software platforms via their mobile app and website. Usage will be monitored and the platform will even provide suggestions on what services that could prove to be useful for each customer.
We foresee some gripes however when it comes to facing issues with our devices and services — since everything is done through mobile live chats and email, things won’t get settled as fast if you were speaking face-to-face with a customer service agent. Furthermore, Circles.Life isn’t fully an independent unit — it’s a virtual network that’s partnered up with M1. Any problems with the M1 network, and it’ll presumably affect Circles.Life too. And we all know M1 was slapped with a record fine of $1.5 million a couple of years back for Singapore’s worst mobile service disruption. M1 did boast the best 4G connectivity according to the Infocomm Development Authority, so that could even things out.
Nonetheless, everything that Circles.Life is promising sounds hugely attractive, especially to us folks who simply need lots of mobile data instead of other pre-packaged nonsense that we never use (yet pay for) every month. Learn more on their Facebook page and website.
