iphone4.. DiGi or Maxis??

Okay, lets get started. I've come across quite number of Apple lovers in Malaysia who have been waiting to get hold of later iPhone 4. Malaysia's two telco giants have come out with their Postpaid plans to impress the iPhone lovers to buy/subscribe to their Postpaid services.

Most of the people, I've came across - obviously looks confused with the Postpaid Plans and clueless on whether to choose Digi or Maxis. Some, even not sure what they want and how it can replace their current mobile expenses without adding extra costs. Here, I've done some bacic but thorough analysis - simulating user experience and expectation that might be useful in choosing the right plan for you.

SPOILER ALERT: Telco X wins the analysis over Telco Y with 3-1 score. Who is Telco X and Telco Y? Read on...

Intro:
For your info, we didnt consider all the available postpaid plans. The analysis is based on very basic plan with 24 months contract from both telcos (Digi's iDigi88 Plan and Maxis' iValue1 Plan) to cater for large number of students and staffs with average income. If from beginning you were already considering postpaid plans with monthly payment of RM200 and higher (iValue2 or iDigi138 and above) - then we are sure you can afford the payment and therefore the analysis might not be needed to you.

This analysis will help in making the right choice for university students and staffs with average income - who I believe will be in large percentage among postpaid subscribers.

A. Analysis 1
(If you are a iPhone lover and a phone user who feel the talk time is just nice for both telcos and your main interest is to own an iPhone)

Needless to explain further, this is the very basic plan without considering any other extra costs such as extra talk time and data charge. Please take note, most of other websites didnt consider 5% service tax that will be charged by your bank for the Easy Payment Plan (EPP). This 5% service tax will play an important and significant role in determining the amount for your monthly payment. Since, we assume the user just use according to the plan without exceeding anything apart from the postpaid plan, we have a clear winner.

Telco Choice : DIGI
Score : Digi 1-0 Maxis

B. Analysis 2
(If you are user who feel needs more talk time and planning to go for Telco that offer more talk time)

This is quite complicate. Some users argued that Maxis is offering more talk time, in excess of 133 minutes and that it may be a good choice to consider. Well, we have considered the extra 133minutes by including the 133minutes in Digi (charged at RM0.15 per minute), you will have extra RM19.95 added to the monthly payment under Digi. So, by plainly looking at this - one might thought Maxis is the better choice. Well, it is but only if :-

- you DONT send SMSes to friends who are outside Maxis network ( non-maxis users)
- you DONTsend MMSes to friends who are outside Maxis network ( non-maxis users)

In other words, you CANT or shouldn't send SMS/MMS to friends who are outside Maxis network in order to enjoy the cheaper monthly rate. Maxis does offer free SMS (200 SMSes) and free MMS ( 20 MMS) - but ONLY to Maxis networks. Here is the catch, it's hardly possible to have ONLY Maxis users as friends. So, there could be a time where you might need to SMS or MMS friends from other networks. This is not FREE for you and Maxis will charge you for that. 60 SMS a month will easily makes both Maxis and Digi tie on monthly payment (in other words, Maxis will lose the advantage it has in the image as above). Whereas, Digi allows you to send the FREE SMS and MMS to any network and that will be an advantage for some users.

But, if you plan to send SMS/MMS to only Maxis users to save money - then, we have a winner here.

Telco Choice : Maxis
Score : Digi 1-1 Maxis

C. Analysis 3
(If you are user who feel the talk time is just nice for both telcos but will be using more Internet data than 1Gb )

In this analysis, we will be considering users who surf a lot via Mobile services. With increasing number of users checking Facebook and Twitter from smartphones, apart from Google Maps and other online utilities - it's essential to make sure the users are not burdened to overpay for data usage.

In the example above, apart from the free 1Gb data given by both telcos, we are considering excess usage of about 20MB. Ofcourse in real world, the data usage may be lower or higher than this depending on the user. But to be fair, we are just considering a mere 20MB of excess usage. If you are using internet frequently, probably you will know this 20MB of data usage is too low to be considered. But, lets not include higher data usage, because even with 20MB, the difference between the plans are obvious.

For Maxis users, after data usage exceeds 1Gb, you will be charged RM0.05/10KB. If your usage is in excess of 20MB, you will be needed to pay RM102.40 in extra ( 1MB=1024KB). That makes, RM265 as monthly payment for Maxis users.
For Digi users, after data usage exceeds 1Gb, you will not be paying extra for the excess data but your data speed will be throttled down to 128Kbps. You might not be able to surf with 3G speed anymore, and may experience EDGE or GPRS speed.

Again, if you want more data usage, you should consider other plans ( iValue2 or iDigi138 and above) and as we said, if you go for those plans - you are considered as a person who afford to pay the higher monthly payment and you might not need any comparison of plans.

Telco Choice : Digi
Score : Digi 2-1 Maxis

D. Analysis 4
(If you are user who feel needs more talk time AND will be using more Internet data than 1Gb )

This analysis, considers both users who will need more talk time and more data usage. This analysis is a combo of Analysis 2 and Analysis 3, and you might have already know the details as described above. Directly going into the telco choice, you can see Digi still remains ahead of Maxis when it comes to monthly payment with respect to excess talk time and data usage.

Telco Choice : Digi
Score : Digi 3-1 Maxis

MISC DETAILS THAT MAY BE USEFUL

1. Once you exceed 1Gb data usage for Maxis plan - Maxis will not notify you about this and it's completely your responsibility to keep a tab on this to monitor the data usage. Failing to do so, will cause you to pay for excess charges as above.
2. Digi's 3G coverage is reportedly not available in some areas and you may want to check whether 3G service for Digi is available in the area of your residence before choosing the plan.
3. BREAKING NEWS: One of my colleague working in local MNC reported that once you enable 3G in Maxis phones, the network coverage will start to drop and the network bars will drop to zero bars ( no coverage ) or if you are lucky enough, you will have one bar in your phone. With one bar, I am not sure how fast the 3G speed will be since my colleague said it was rather slow (This info is conducted and verified in Penang region).

SUMMARY

Final Score : Digi defeats Maxis with 3-1 score.

Verdict: You may go for Digi as your preferred Telco for iPhone4 purchase as the user simulated analysis and experience looks like clearly favoring Digi's iPhone Plan. I am not stopping you from choosing Maxis, but I am just requesting you to choose the right plan for you since most of the users tend to ignore the considerations above before buying an iPhone and regrets later ( many cases happened in previous iPhone 3GS Plans whereby users complained that they didnt expect the shcoker). The choice is yours now that you know what are the facts to take in to consideration before purchasing an iPhone 4.