New telco operator joins the fray in Singapore

SINGAPORE'S telecommunications market got more exciting on Thursday with the introduction of a new telco operator, Circles.Life, which is the consumer brand of Liberty Wireless. Starting with a base plan, with no contract, worth S$28 a month, Circles.Life is betting on digitally savvy customers to come on board.

Rameez Ansar, co-founder and director of Circles.Life, said plans to be offered by Circles.Life would centre "on innovative data-centric plans". He reckons that the target audience of the company would constitute 15-20 per cent of Singapore's population. Circles.Life is what is known as a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO).

Mr Ansar said customers can sign up online at the Circle.Life website. "For the base plan, there is a registration fee of S$4 and the SIM card, SIM card delivery and number porting are free," Mr Ansar said. The monthly data bundle comes at 3 gigabytes (GB) for the base plan plus 100 minutes of talk time. The company will throw in bonus data that varies from 500 megabytes (MB) to 4 GB.

The Circle.Life official added that the plan allows for pay-as-you-go rates for talktime and SMS use. All incoming SMS is free.

"Recognising the fact that most people use WhatsApp for messaging as well as call, we include unlimited messaging and calls using the app. This is over and above the data available for the plan. We are also including free caller number display and free roaming," Mr Ansar added.

The company will also be selling mobile phones on their website at their retail prices. Circles.Life has teamed up with DBS and UOB to offer interest-free instalment schemes for the phone purchases. Mr Ansar said that the company is talking to other banks to offer similar instalment schemes.