A few weeks ago, I got a SIM-only plan with 台灣大哥大 (aka Taiwan Mobile, MyFone) to put in a Moto Milestone. Anyway, I happened to be back at 光華商場 (Guang Hua Digital Plaza) yesterday to get some other stuff and stopped by the MyFone store.
The girl remembered me and said I could still change the plan to include an iPhone 3GS if I wanted to given it hasn’t been a month. So I’m going to do that and gift or sell the phone to someone or use it for development.
Anyway, my current plan is the 401 voice + 699 data. If I understand this correctly, the voice is fixed (ie: you prepay for the minutes monthly even if you don’t use them) and the data price is capped at 800NT. And it’s a 24 month contract. Is that all correct?
If all this is correct, my 5-minute plopped together spreadsheet shows the following TCO. This excludes overage, text messages, SMS and assumes you will always hit the data cap. I did this for only the all-you-can eat data plans because a smartphone without one is pretty stupid.
TCO
PLAN 16GB 32GB
491+699 37724 41724
699+699 39876 43876
968+699 42432 46332
1500+699 55200 55200
The interesting thing is in the deltas. For example, going from a 401 to 699 is 2152 more TCO in both cases, or 90NT/month delta for the life of the contract, which makes it pretty cheap to hop up voice at that level to hedge against overages. However, going from 968 to 1500 is at worst 12768=1064/month delta and at best 739/month delta.
The chart in the brochure where they list the “price” of phone is hilarious given this data. The “free” 32GB is only on the 1500+699, which is much worst cost of ownership and actually on the margin worse than the difference in the prices for the monthly contract. Bravo to 台灣大哥大 for setting up the pricing so that they make better margin on the “free” phone, lol.
For reference, the chart is here. Hopefully my assumptions above are correct.
_ 16GB 16GB 16GB 16GB 32GB 32GB 32GB 32GB
Voice 401 699 968 1500 401 699 968 1500
Data (699 capped to 800) 800 800 800 800 800 800 800 800
Phone 8900 3900 0 0 12900 7900 3900 0
Prepay towards service 15400 19572 23338 30786 15400 19572 23338 30786
Initial Outlay 24300 23472 23338 30786 28300 27472 27238 30786
Full months prepaid 12 13 13 13 12 13 13 13
Leftover from prepay 988 85 354 886 988 85 354 886
Pay to complete contract 13424 16404 19094 24414 13424 16404 19094 24414
TCO 37724 39876 42432 55200 41724 43876 46332 552000