TODAY'S smartphones can make you feel dumb if you are not that tech-savvy.
WAYS TO CUT COSTS
If you expect to use any data services, such as e-mail, Web surfing, instant messaging, or anything for which you go online with your phone, sign up for a data plan with the telcos. These usually give a better rate than pay-per-use plans.
Call your mobile operator to ask about roaming partner networks and flat-rate data roaming plans if you want to, say, check your e-mail messages on your phone while overseas.
Crammed with features, many of these devices can 'push' e-mail to you, let you watch a YouTube clip, double as a GPS navigator and more.
The result? Your next bill from the telco could spring a surprise.
That's because the above features gobble up megabytes - which you pay for - if you had not read the manual and learnt to turn off functions you do not need.
Ms Lee Bee Wah, 40, an MP for Ang Mo Kio GRC, recently recalled how she chalked up a $1,700 phone bill in four days while travelling in Phuket, Thailand, four years ago.
Her Internet-enabled phone kept downloading e-mail messages even though she avoided opening them.
'I knew checking e-mail on my phone is expensive while travelling, so I went to the Internet cafe every day,' she said. 'I was shocked to see the phone bill later.'
She found out later that she needed to deactivate the pushmail service she had subscribed to if she wanted to stop e-mail downloads.
The service pushes e-mail from a server to the phone, much like how SMS messages are pushed to phones. Such data services require the phones to connect to mobile broadband networks, or go online.
M1, SingTel and StarHub report more demand for their data services.
