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Cheapest telco in Malaysia
Posted on 23 March 2019
Click here if you want to get straight to the point.
Mobile telcos that I can name off the top of my head based on the 23 years that I have been staying in Malaysia are the big players; Maxis, Digi, Celcom, the cheaper branch of Maxis - Hotlink. If you are not a heavy user, the cheapest way to have a contact number was their standard pre-paid plans. RM 30 of top activates your number for a month and if you don't top up again, you will still be able to receive calls but won't be able to make calls. So cheapest rate, RM30/month... or was it?
If you're like me, not a heavy user, what is remaining of your RM 30 prepaid that you topped up will be carried forward to the consecutive months. I used to accumulate up to more than RM 100 worth of unused prepaid credit when I was on Digi. That didn't used to be a problem though. Why? They used to have something called "Super Long Life" where you can use RM 30 mobile credit to keep your number active for 1 year. Sadly, as the years go by, Digi and Hotlink introduced newer, more "attractive" prepaid plans which phased out the Super Long Life option.
So techinically, if you are talking about mobile prepaid plans, RM30/month is the cheapest you can go. And what do you do with the extra prepaid credits if you use less than RM30 every month? You can use them to redeem mobile game credits or buy some apps on the appstore but that's just speding money on where you otherwise wouldn't have spent.
Why I don't use prepaid anymore
Two words. Troublesome and internet.
Using prepaid means that every month, you have to go to the nearest 7-eleven or buy a pin online to top up your phone. Not only that, you have to manually activate your internet plan every time it expires.
Mobile data (internet) has climbed its way up the hierarchy of needs of our lives and prepaid plans are dissapointing in the internet plans they offer. RM 20 for 1 month of 1GB data?. That leaves you RM 10 a month worth of calls and sms to make which might not be enough for some people. This will drive your expenditure to more than RM30/month. You won't be accumulating any prepaid credits at this rate.
U mobile and Yoodo
Okay, enough rambling. Let's get straight to the point. The cheapest telcos that I know of are U Mobile and Yoodo.
Albeit being a new company, U mobile puts the bigger mobile telcos to shame when it comes to the plans that they offer. They offer the best bang for your buck and are not afraid to compare their own offers with the rest of the telcos on their website. Have a look at it yourself. Telco D in yellow obviously refers to Digi, telco M in green, you guessed it - Maxis. And telco C in blue is Celcom. All these telcos are more expensive and have more restrictions to their internet use. Maxis and Celcom doesn't even have an entry plan comparable to U mobile anymore.
The plan I am recommending from U Mobile is the HERO U28 which offers 3GB of internet (exclusing unlimited internet for Facebook, Twitter and Instagram), and 50 mins of call for RM28/month (Actually about RM 31/month after tax). What's the catch? There are rumours that U Mobile doesn't have as good of a coverage as other telcos. True or not, maybe. I was using U Mobile's U28 plan for over a year and I had no problems with coverage. It depends on your area I guess. My advice if you are interested, try it, if the coverage is bad for your area, ditch it. Also, if you need more than 50 minutes of call a month, this plan is not for you.
If you are attentive enough, you would have noticed I said I used to use U mobile. I am not using it now. Why? hehe... I found something cheaper!
What telco am I using now?
Yoodo. RM17/month, 50 minutes call, 2GB internet. If you are thinking of giving it a try, don't be stingy and use my promo code vmnuy5682 or use my referral link. You get RM20, I get RM20. Win-win.
What is yoodo? I've never heard of it. I accidentally stumbled upon this telco when Yoodo partnered up with Boost, an e-wallet I happened to be trying out. Yoodo is under the company Axiata Bhd. which is the same company that Celcom is under so I guess you can say Yoodo is a cheaper branch of Celcom?
What I love about Yoodo is that they allow you to customise your own mobile plan so you only pay for what you need. You can customise the minutes of calls you need, how much internet you need and how many SMS you need in a month. Why didn't anyone think of that? And their rates are super competitive. Follow this link and try it out. The process of porting out from your old telco and porting in to Yoodo while keeping your old phone number is also impressively seemless as everything can be done through their app. If you're skeptical about it, you can just have the free SIM card delivered for free to your doorstep first before you start paying for anything. But if you want to take my word for it, there's nothing to be skeptical about. It's legit.
I customised mine to have 50 mins of call and 2GB of internet which is sufficient for me as I have Wifi at home and in Uni and I only need mobile data when I go outstation, GPS when I am driving, and when I go out with my friends. I don't need SMS, who uses SMS now when you have WhatsApp??
My experience with it? I'm into my 4th month using this telco, internet is fast, coverage is good even when I am at Batu Pahat, and it is cheap (RM17/month no extra charges). Nothing to complain here.
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