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Giga – My Choice for Frugal Phone Plan (Promo Code Inside)

Nowadays, when it comes to mobile plans, our usage pattern varies from person to person.

I used to work in the role of support in a security tight organization. This means that

  1. I do not have the internet on my computer terminal.
  2. I am constantly on the move.
  3. I do not consume a lot of rich media on the go.
  4. There will be those occasions I could not plan for that I need to check something technical that I am not too sure about, or that I do not know how to do, or whether it is correct.
  5. People do call me and I do need to call people as it is more productive to discuss time-sensitive things through a call.

With these needs, I do need a more dedicated mobile plan so that there is adequate data for me to perform these work functions.

Fast forward to today, for the past 1 year, my usage needs have changed a hundred eighty degrees.

  1. Mainly I work from home.
  2. I have broadband at home.
  3. At work, we have wifi access.
  4. I do not consume a lot of rich media content on the go.
  5. I do need to call but not so much.

With these kinds of needs, I just need a plan that gives me enough data when I am out and about with my friends and enough talk time for the occasional conversation with people.

So when my M1 contract ran down a few months ago, I began to see which plan on the market that fit these criteria and I hit upon Giga’s $10 a month plan.

Giga is Starhub’s fully digital mobile virtual network operator (MVNO), so they use Starhub’s cell network.

What I like about the plan is:

  1. No contract. There is no lock-in. If I do not like the service I can change anytime that I want.
  2. $10 a month. One of my goals is to spend only what I need. I think $10 is low enough.
  3. 6 GB of Data. When I started with Giga it was 5GB of data and usually, in a month, I would use about 1.5 to 2 GB of data. I know around how much I consume and so are pretty comfortable with this package.
  4. 500 SMS. In 2021, Giga has upsized the SMS to 500 SMS!
  5. 500 min talk time. As with the SMS, Giga did the same for the talk time as well.
  6. Free Incoming talk time and SMS. This might look like a standard but MyRepublic’s package back then did not include incoming SMS by default.
  7. Free Rollover Data. What this means is that if you do not use the data for the past month, it will roll over to the next month. This does not mean that if you keep having surpluses of data, your data would balloon to a lot of GB! Most of the time, I would have 12 GB of data on my plan (it used to be 10 GB in the past)
  8. Fully digital onboarding process. This is the first time I experienced a process that I do not have to talk to anyone and I can get a sim card and ready to use within one or two days (I cannot remember). They will give you a temporary number while your existing number is ported from your old telecom operator. I do not know how it works, but I did not experience any breakage in telecom services.
  9. Sim card of all sizes. Not sure if you have unpleasant experiences with other telecom operators but the sim card they provided can be broken into different sizes. This means that if you are on a legacy phone that needs to use a larger sim card, Giga would still work without much fuss as well.

With all this, sometimes what I am afraid of is that the 100 min talk time is just not enough. There are some months that may be… some of the support calls that I need to render to some advisers may run longer than that.

The great thing about Giga’s no-frills plan is that if I feel that this is not enough, I could just spend $1 and add 100 mins of talk-time from their mobile app.

This allows me to vary my usage with a base amount of credits.

With the mobile app, I can monitor my usage so that I can add talk-time or data when I need to.

What This Plan is Suited For

I think this plan would fit those who have the same work profile as myself. Work at home or in the office most of the time and not the kind that consumes a lot of rich media.

It just sits at a very nice junction of having flexibility, a cost that is low enough, and flexible.

I like this plan so much that I signed up for my dad to the same plan after being on Singtel for ages.

You may wish to sign up for your parent’s whose calls are mainly incoming, does not call out so much, yet have enough data for their needs.

This might also be suitable if you have the kids and wish to control their usage, yet don’t have an autocratic plan that will be very hard for you to increase their usage if there are peak periods where they need more communication with their friends.

I do read a lot from website on the go in the past while I am in my IT job and seldom did I get into a situation where my data usage just based on reading websites rich in media goes above 5 GB.

In terms of network, Starhub’s network is not the best. I always had this reservations whenever I have friends complaining about the network but I got round to the idea that each telecom network has a weak point in certain regions. You just have to know whether these network are weak for the regions that you will frequent.

I have used their network for a while and I think it is serviceable. Never did it got to a stage where the thought of cancellation and switching came to my mind.

Where to Sign Up

Giga does have other no-contract plans on the higher tier, and if your needs are higher, you might want to go for them. I am not sure if it is getting popular to not have home broadband and just sign up for a jumbo mobile plan, but the 45 GB one might interest you (do let me know in the comments if, for your family, you choose only to sign up for mobile packages without a home broadband package.)

If you would like to sign up for Giga, you can use my Referral Code: bVW331

If you sign up with my referral code, you get to enjoy the Top Pick 45GB plan at just $15 (U.P. $25) for the first month. Or enjoy the 6GB plan at just $9 (U.P. $10) for the first month or 50GB plan at just $42 (U.P. $45) for the first month.

Enter the referral promo code bVW331 on the payments page when you sign up for Giga.

If you do not like it, remember that it is no contract and you can cancel anytime.

This post contains affiliate links. Kyith gets paid just a tiny amount when you sign up. Like half the price of a Starbucks coffee tiny.

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Alicia

Wednesday 25th of May 2022

Thanks have use ur referral code. hopefully u get something

notamyrepublicstaff

Thursday 10th of September 2020

MyRepublic has a $10 plan using M1's network. 6 gb with 300 minute talktime.

Kyith

Thursday 10th of September 2020

this sounds like a very good deal?

Anon

Thursday 10th of September 2020

Although all these sim only plans are contract free, I noticed from my brief research that your number can only be ported from a contract plan to a sim only plan (not sure if the reverse works).

Which means that when you want to swap sim only plans between different providers e.g. Giga to Gomo, you will face problems porting over your number.

Do you have any idea is this is true? Thanks.

retirewithfi

Thursday 10th of September 2020

Not true. Ported from M1 (contract) to MyRepublic to Giga to Circles and back to Giga again.

Sharon

Thursday 10th of September 2020

Is there an expiry date to the referral code? My M1 SIM-only 1-year subscription contract ends only in December, which is a few months away.

Kyith

Thursday 10th of September 2020

there is not. don't worry about the referral code there is not much difference. What you can do is by then, evaluate if this deal still works for you or not, if not the other competitive deals are pretty good as well.

Mich

Wednesday 9th of September 2020

You've missed out something that is of critical importance that NOT all telco provides - when you are overseas and you did not subscribe to the roaming (because getting a local data plan when overseas is the norm), will you be able to receive your OTP SMS from banks?

lim

Friday 11th of September 2020

I am on OCBC, UOB and SCB, All allow app-based 2FA. SMS is on its way out already.

Which bank are you using that still forces you to use SMS OTP?

To me, app based 2FA is more secure. If you lose your phone, thieves can take out your sim card put into another phone to receive SMS OTP.

App based 2FA- not easy to break phone encryption.

Kyith

Wednesday 9th of September 2020

What if you just add roaming when you need to go overseas.

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