[Update 2/3/2016]: Digi revamped its postpaid plans to offer even more to its customers. Find out what has changed in the company’s latest postpaid plans!
[Update 15/2/2016] The Maxis section has been updated to remove all outdated information.
[Update 12/2/2016]: A lot has changed over the past few months, particularly with Celcom, Digi, and U Mobile. These major telecommunication companies have unveiled their latest offerings, so let’s take a look at them one by one after the break.
There are four major telcos here in Malaysia that offer postpaid voice and messaging services along with data – Maxis, Celcom, DiGi and U Mobile. Each of these telcos have their own rates for different voice calls/SMS/MMS and data that are catered for different people in the market, so which one is best suited for your usage? We’ve compiled a list of all the plans offered by each of these telcos so if you want to subscribe to a postpaid line or simply wish to port to a different telco, look no further. These rates are the latest ones offered by these four telcos, which includes the latest plans from DiGi (the new SmartPlan plans with 4G LTE), as well as U Mobile’s latest Unlimited plans.
Just a little reminder, none of these plans are tied to any contract. Contract only applies for phone bundles, or when the telco gives you an extra discount for signing up for a contract. Otherwise, you will be free to change your plans anytime you want.
Celcom
[Update 12/2/2016]: Celcom has begun 2016 quite spectacularly. After the company launched the FIRST Blue and FIRST Gold plans in November 2015, Celcom has since updated the FIRST Gold Voice and Internet plan to give 10GB of mobile data (5GB monthly mobile data / 5GB weekend mobile data), as well as making calls and SMS unlimited instead of charging for them. Not only that, the revamped FIRST Gold plan even has a lower monthly commitment fee of RM80 instead of RM100. To learn more about the plan, check out the announcement post here.
On the other hand, the FIRST Blue plan has a monthly commitment fee of RM45 that comes with 6GB of internet, which is actually a combination of 2GB quota, 2GB Celcom WiFi and 2GB mobile data that’s distributed equally on weekends. These new plans do have free calls and free SMS allocated, but once it is used up, the rates would be 20 sen/min/SMS rather than the 15 sen or 10 sen/min/SMS found on the older First Basic plans.
Furthermore, FIRST Blue and Gold subscribers will also receive 6 months and 12 months of free unlimited music streaming respectively. This is not Spotify or Apple Music, but Celcom’s very own music streaming service called Yonder.
Celcom’s FIRST Blue and Gold plans. Note that the FIRST Gold plan on the right column has since been updated with a limited-time promo, which is discussed above.
Should you still find yourself short on mobile data, you can opt to purchase more with the new add-on plans from Celcom called Max Up.
Others:
Maxis
After a long history of complicated postpaid plans, Maxis cleaned up its offerings quite a bit in recent years. The new postpaid plans are in the table right below, offering different plans for different users. There are now a total of 6 postpaid plans to choose from: four MaxisONE plans, a MaxisGO budget plan, and the SurfMore50 plan.
[Update: 15/2/2016] The MaxisONE plans are now the focus of Maxis’ postpaid strategy. Offering unlimited calls and texts to all networks used to be unique to the MaxisONE plan, but it is one that other telcos are now beginning to offer as well. From just the one MaxisONE 128 plan, you can now choose which MaxisONE plan that suits you based on your mobile data usage: MaxisONE 98 (RM98 with 1GB data), MaxisONE 128 (RM128 with 3GB data), MaxisONE 158 (RM158 for 5GB of data), and MaxisONE 188 (RM188 for 8GB of data).
Those using MaxisONE 128 and above can also sign up for MaxisONE Share supplementary lines. For RM48/month per supplementary line, the principal user can not only share data, but also the unlimited voice and text allocation to supplementary lines. Principal users can also control how much data can be shared to the supplementary lines via the MyMaxis app.
That’s not all. Maxis also allows its MaxisONE plan subscribers to opt for the new Zerolution plan. Essentially, Zerolution allows subscribers to bring home the device of their choice with zero upfront, zero interest and “zero 24 months contract”.
On top of the data, calls and SMS bundled with the plans, Maxis does include additional benefits with its postpaid plans. For instance, Maxis offers Spotify Premium to its MaxisONE plan subscribers for free. This means they have access to a Spotify Premium account (worth RM15/month) which removes all ads, data charges, and offline listening. MaxisONE plans also come with unlimited social chat on chat apps like Whatsapp, WeChat, Line and Facebook. Once your high-speed quota is used up, you are still able to chat, it’s just that sending images or videos might be slower than usual. For MaxisGO, they receive an additional 1GB of off-peak data for use between 2am and 7am everyday.
With the removal of SurfMore75, the next best data-centric plan to sign up for is SurfMore50. For RM50 a month, you get 2GB of data and one of the lowest data upgrades from any telco in Malaysia: RM15 for 1GB and RM30 for 2GB, with 1 month validity. There are also one-time 24 hour passes of RM2 for 100MB, and RM5 for 1GB.
However, the pay-per-use charges for calls and texts are pretty expensive at 20 sen/min and 15 sen/SMS to other networks.
If you’re a heavy internet user, the new MaxisONE plans are without a doubt on the expensive side. That said, the existing Maxis SurfMore50 plan are still available, though after the removal of the SurfMore 75 plan we’re not sure if this plan will stick around for long.
Besides the postpaid plans above, Maxis also offers postpaid plans specific for the iPhone bundles, and they are shown below:
Maxis iPhone Plans:
Maxis iPhone Plans, available for iPhone bundles only.
Others:
- Share ‘n’ Surf – Share your internet quota with up to 5 additional devices at RM15/additional SIM card/month. Only available for data plans of 2GB and above.
- Spotify Premium subscription for only RM9.99/month instead of RM14.90/month for Maxis subscribers
DiGi
DiGi has by far the simplest and most straightforward postpaid plans in the market with five SmartPlans catered for its users. There is an iDiGi plan as well but it’s only catered for iPhone phone bundles only so let’s not go into that.
[Update 2/3/2016]: Digi has yet again revamped its postpaid plans to offer more calls, SMS, and more importantly – Internet. Some of the plans receive Internet quota bumps, while some of them gets a lowered monthly commitment fee. Do note that these plans are still a limited time offer, which will only last until the 30th of June 2016. That’s an ample amount for users to subscribe or switch to Digi’s New Postpaid Plan. Check out the new plans below:
[Update 12/2/2016]: Now that the limited-time offer for the Digi SmartPlan 25, 45, and 65 has ended, the telco has introduced yet another limited-time offer for its new plan: SmartPlan 75. This plan comes with a monthly commitment fee of RM75, which comes with 7GB of Internet as well as unlimited calls and SMS. This certainly sounds like a good deal, and it is. The only catch is you have to sign up before the 29th of February 2016.
Not only that, Digi customers can now enjoy one year of iFlix for free, courtesy of Digi. Customers only need to either sign up or upgrade their plan to Digi SmartPlan 65 and above, which includes the SmartPlan 75 plan.
[Updated 18/11/2015]: Digi has revamped its postpaid offerings. The company has added a SmartPlan 238 to its Digi SmartPlan (refer table below). It also offers various call and SMS bundles with extra services like Music Freedom, Capture and Unlimited Whatsapp and WeChat.
[Updated 11/5/2015] About a year later, Digi yet again revised its postpaid plans to bring even more value for its subscribers. Gone are the data plans that sounds like a lot, but in actual fact are split into two – Smart Apps and Internet usage. The new plans from Digi comes in two options catered for different users – High Voice or High Data.
Similar to Celcom’s plans with Optimiser, whether you’re a heavy voice user or a heavy data user, Digi has just the plan for you. Its SmartPlan 50/78/108/148 remains the same, but each of these plans now has two options. Check out our older post for the details.
Click on image for larger version. Check out the older plans in this link
This definitely makes a lot more sense than its older plans. To top things up, there are also extra benefits such as unlimited WeChat and WhatsApp, and Free Music Freedom.
DiGi iPhone Plans, available for iPhone bundles only.
Others:
U Mobile
[Update 12/2/2016]: The U Mobile P70 Hero plan has been doing pretty well and the company has made it even better with the introduction of the Hero Plus plan. Essentially, it allows P70 Hero Postpaid plan users to a supplementary line known as Share 50 member line. The member line will cost RM50 a month and it adds 3GB of data to be shared between the member line and the main line – that’s a total of 10GB of data to be shared between the two users. On top of that, the member line will also enjoy free unlimited calls to all networks.
Like Celcom, U Mobile’s postpaid offerings are few in numbers, but is easily the easiest to understand – and offers competitive rates across the board for voice, SMS and data.
The plans available as of 12 February 2016 are as follows:
U Mobile also has phone bundle plans, but as you can see, they’re not as attractive as the telco’s Hero plans.
The same can be said here.
Others:
- Supplementary line from RM10/month
- Internet Share Plans (SP68) also allows you to share you’re your free minutes and data with up to 3 SIM cards – first 2 is free, third is charged at RM10/SIM/month. Check out our price comparison for internet sharing plans between U Mobile and Maxis.
- Get 50MB of free internet roaming each day
Final Words
It seems strange that while Celcom, Digi and U Mobile have revised their plans over the past few months to cater for heavy data users, Maxis continues to buck the trend. The telco has updated and unveiled new MaxisONE plans, but the allocated mobile data quotas are still lower than the competition; add-ons are available, but they’re not cheap. There’s limitless calls and SMS of course, but for someone like myself who spends probably RM5 or so on calls a month, it’s definitely something I can’t relate to. More importantly, all other networks have now begun offering the same thing.
Of course, while price is an important factor when picking the right postpaid plan for all your mobile needs, the most important thing you should consider is the coverage area, especially if you wish to sign up for a device bundle with a telco with a contract of up to 24 months – that’s two whole years of continued suffering if there is hardly any coverage in the places you frequent (or even live in).
Hence, you should check the 2G, 3G and 4G coverage for each telco at their individual pages before jumping into any postpaid plans – Celcom coverage area, Maxis coverage area, DiGi coverage area and U Mobile coverage area. Here’s where Maxis somewhat justifies its premium prices: its coverage and LTE speeds is arguably the widest and most stable respectively.
What this simply means is that there is no “best” postpaid plan, but there is one that suits you best. Once you’ve sorted out which telco offers the best coverage for you and then refer to this guide, you should now be better equipped to make the most informed decision on which postpaid plan to subscribe.
As telcos continue to offer new and better postpaid plans, we’ll continue to update this page to discuss the new plans. The time stamps you see above are an indicator of these updates, and though they may make things messy and/or confusing, I feel they serve well to give readers an idea of how these plans have evolved as time passes. – Ed
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