update 3 – Also those who had pre-ordered, would have receive the email and SMS to inform them of collection. A site was set up to confirm pick up locations but site seems to be offline – probably not load-balance to handle the high influx of customers.

update 2 – got confirmation of the increase in data bundle and also added special bundle for students and NSF.

update – with no official word yet, it seems that Starhub has raise the free data bundle for the iPhone-specific plans to 12GB, from its original 1GB (via CNET Asia)

In a bid to recapture some marketshare in the tight mobile market, Starhub has announced ahead of M1 with their iPhone pricing and sale date.

Coming to stores all over Singapore this Wednesday, Starhub will be the second Telco to offer iPhone to the country. Prices will be from S$0 (for the top tier 3G SmartSurf Unlimited plan) to S$668 for the iPhone 3GS 32GB (3G SmartSurf 100). Data credit starts at 12GB for all plans with a maximum cap of S$48 to unlimited usage for the 3G SmartSurf Unlimited plan.

Tapping on their cable TV infrastructure, Starhub is also offering 17 channels for free, at least till March 2010. These channels include National Geographic Channel, CTI, CCTV4, BBC WorldNews, Bloomberg, CNN, Football Channel just to name a few, as compared to the 4 (CNA, Ch8, Bloomberg TV and Football Frenzy) offered by SingTel.

Also for students and NSF who take up these SmartSurf plans – you will get unlimited SMS/MMS bundled with those plans.

We have done up a quick pricing comparison with SingTel and what Starhub announced and generally prices are comparable with only differences with call, Data and SMS credits (see below for quick review). We will update the comparison when M1 announces their plans.

For those who had pre-ordered, you would probably receive notifications about getting priority access to the new iPhone 3GS. At the moment, there is no news on whether there will be upgrading fee for Starhub users still on contract, or trade-in prices for existing iPhone 3G phones and any package for switchers. We will definitely update with more information on launch plans and features from Starhub and M1 in the next few days. Keep a look out!

For Starhub customers who had already owns the iPhone – do check your iTunes for a carrier update that will allow you to Tether and MMS with not much hassle – as compared to before.

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