<TABLE border=0 cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%"><TBODY><TR>mio TV's free offer isn't really free
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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->THE Saturday advertisement by SingTel on the English Premier League (EPL) free offer looks too good to resist.
It offers free installation, free modem, free first set-top box and free 30 days preview of all mio TV programmes.
Furthermore, you do not have to pay anything until August next year.
It looks like everything is free for anyone who is willing to sign up right away, but I would like to add a word of caution, that it is not free.
There is a hidden charge.
SingTel mio TV runs on telephone lines and households without a SingTel phone will have to install a phone line to view mio TV.
There is an installation charge and on top of that, a charge of $27.50 quarterly. Annually, the payment is $110 without GST.
I find this odd because one has to pay to watch mio TV, and at the same time the subscriber has to pay for the landline every year.
It is the same as making a household pay each month for the electricity it uses as well as for the cable that was installed.
StarHub charges only for programmes that one subscribes to. It does not charge for a phone line. To top it off, the phone line is not chargeable with unlimited local calls.
Can SingTel top that?
By calculation, if each subscriber pays $110 a year, multiply that amount by 300,000 potential customers from current StarHub EPL viewers - and SingTel will collect a huge sum of money.
Tan Yong Hua
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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->THE Saturday advertisement by SingTel on the English Premier League (EPL) free offer looks too good to resist.
It offers free installation, free modem, free first set-top box and free 30 days preview of all mio TV programmes.
Furthermore, you do not have to pay anything until August next year.
It looks like everything is free for anyone who is willing to sign up right away, but I would like to add a word of caution, that it is not free.
There is a hidden charge.
SingTel mio TV runs on telephone lines and households without a SingTel phone will have to install a phone line to view mio TV.
There is an installation charge and on top of that, a charge of $27.50 quarterly. Annually, the payment is $110 without GST.
I find this odd because one has to pay to watch mio TV, and at the same time the subscriber has to pay for the landline every year.
It is the same as making a household pay each month for the electricity it uses as well as for the cable that was installed.
StarHub charges only for programmes that one subscribes to. It does not charge for a phone line. To top it off, the phone line is not chargeable with unlimited local calls.
Can SingTel top that?
By calculation, if each subscriber pays $110 a year, multiply that amount by 300,000 potential customers from current StarHub EPL viewers - and SingTel will collect a huge sum of money.
Tan Yong Hua
