Starhub Launches New Data Roaming Service 4 Mar 2011

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Starhub has launched a new data roaming service for those who love to travel but don’t want to incure hefty roaming charges. With Starhub Roam Manager, you can check rates, track spending and set daily data alerts for total peace of mind.

Singapore, 2 March 2011 – While you take that well-deserved overseas break or go on a business trip abroad, logging on to the Internet from your smartphone does not mean having to break your bank account.

StarHub today announced that it has launched Roam Manager – a Singapore’s first set of tools that provides mobile roaming customers with pertinent roaming related information and data usage cost notification feature, further enhancing customers’ peace-of-mind data roaming in more than 220 destinations around the world.

Said Ms Joanna Chan, StarHub’s Vice President of Personal Solutions: “StarHub knows that the mobile Internet on the smartphone is indispensable to customers, even when they are out of Singapore. That’s why we want to take away the fear of incurring international data cost unknowingly by offering four new affordable roaming data plans, daily unlimited surfing plan, and Roam Manager that provides roaming related information and data usage cost notifications at customers’ fingertips. With StarHub’s comprehensive roaming solutions, our customers will be able keep in touch with their friends and families while overseas and also be aware of their roaming usage and avoid incurring unexpected mobile roaming charges.”

With Roam Manager, StarHub’s roaming customers are able to check their daily data roaming charges, to know how much they have spent that day.

In addition, four new levels of daily data roaming notifications are now available for customers’ selection, each providing five tiers of alert that will be triggered when data roaming usage hits the specified amount in a day:
– Level 1: $20, $40, $60, $80, $100
– Level 2: $50, $100, $150, $200, $250
– Level 3: $100, $300, $500, $800, $1,000 (Default setting for data roaming notification)
– Level 4: $200, $400, $600, $800, $1,000

As data roaming usage does not stay constant, depending on the nature and duration of the trip, customers have the flexibility to select a different data alert level as and when is needed.

To empower customers with even greater control, they will also have the ability to directly suspend data roaming connection on their handset on the fly! At any point in time when mobile data access is needed, they can easily reconnect the service. This capability will be available to StarHub’s roaming customers at the end of March 2011.

Roam manager also allows users to conveniently check the roaming rates for mobile calls, SMS and data in that destination, as well as the local emergency telephone numbers.

To access Roam Manager, customers simply dial *100# on their mobile phone. There will be no roaming charges to customers for the use of the service overseas.

Affordable data roaming plans
StarHub today also introduced four new monthly data-roaming plans that offer frequent travellers discounted mobile data access when they roam on selected overseas mobile networks in any of the 21 available destinations in Asia, Europe and America (See Editor’s Notes for details).

The 10MB package costs $30 per month, the 20MB package costs $48 per month, the 40MB package costs $90 per month, and the 100MB package costs $200 per month.

Based on regular international data rates of $0.02/KB, if the customer uses 2MB of data a day, it would cost him a whopping $120 during a three-day overseas trip. However, purchasing an international data package a data roaming plan can significantly reduce the cost of using data abroad, as the bundled credit from the data-roaming packages will allow him to do much more on the smartphone and help control his costs better because of the predictability in data roaming charges.

The four data roaming packages complement the existing $15 capped daily data plan that customers are enjoying today. Since 2007, StarHub has been offering customers the choice to cap their data roaming charges by connecting to the network of one of StarHub’s regional partners in selected countries (See Editor’s Notes for details). On these operators’ network, their data charges will be capped at $15 per day.

“Data usage is indispensable to roaming customers today, and they want to be empowered with smart tools that can help them decide how they use roaming data on a personalised level. We believe StarHub offers the most comprehensive and cost-effective mobile data roaming services in the market for both leisure and business travellers. We want to be the most customer-friendly roaming partner, so our customers can truly roam in any part of the world with ease of mind,” added Ms Chan.

StarHub’s data roaming packages are offered to frequent travellers to the following countries/networks:
Australia (Hutchison/Telstra/Vodafone), Belgium (Base/Mobistar), China (China Mobile/China Unicom), Finland (DNA/Elise), France (Orange), Germany (T-Mobile/E-Plus), Greece (Cosmote), Hong Kong (CSL/China Mobile HK), India (Vodafone), Luxembourg (Orange), Malaysia (Celcom), Netherlands (KPN), Poland (Orange), Romania (Orange), Slovakia (Orange), Spain (Orange), Sri Lanka (Dialog), Switzerland (SwissCom/Orange), Taiwan (ChungHwa), UK (T-Mobile/Telefonica O2/Vodafone) and USA (AT&T).

StarHub’s mobile customers will have their data charges capped at $15 a day when roaming in the following countries/networks:
Hong Kong (Hutchison Telecommunications), Indonesia (PT Indosat), India (BSNL/MTNL), Japan (NTT DOCOMO), The Philippines (Smart Communications), S Korea (KTF), Taiwan (FarEasTone/KG Telecom), Thailand (True Move), Vietnam (Vinaphone), Macau (Hutchison Telecommunications) and Malaysia (DiGi).