Lengthen Incoming Call Ringing Time

Yesterday, I went to Starhub Service Centre at Plaza Singapura to have my incoming call ringing time lengthened from the network default of 30 seconds. Was told it cannot be done. When I insisted that it could be done and it was only whether they wanted to do it that the guy came back with his supervisor with a piece of paper with the instruction code to do so. But it was still only 30 seconds.

Before I attempted to key in the code, I asked the supervisor whether doing so would corrupt my SIM Card and she assured me that it wouldn’t. But after I tried, my SIM Card was corrupted. But I didn’t realise this until I reached home when my phone kept indicating “insert sim card.”

So I had to go to their Service Centre again but this time I went to the one at Tampines Mall as it was nearer and told the service guy what happened. He and his supervisor(s) were also not aware that the ringing time could be lengthened and were surprised that instruction codes were available. Anyway my SIM Card was replaced but all the data was corrupted and could not be retrieved.

I had backup my SIM Card onto my computer hard drive which unfortunately crashed three weeks ago which meant I didn’t have a backup! I will have to ask some of my contacts to give me their contacts and have to key them in again.

As calling Starhub would be a frustrating thing to do, I decided to write in and let them sort out amongst themselves before coming back to me. But to get their email address I had to call the hotline as the email address wasn’t reflected on their website. The guy who picked up the call, Tino, who was situated in the Philippines, told me the email address was customerservice@starhub.com.sg. When I asked about the sg part, he replied that “since Starhub is in Singapore, there should be sg”. Of course he was wrong!

I had written them an email detailing the sequence of events and would wait for their response. Even within a small HDB flat, 30 seconds might not be sufficient for one to get to the phone in time if one is in another section of the flat. Why must Starhub insist on just 30 seconds? Customers should be allowed to decide how long they want their phone to ring before been diverted or stopped.

Got myself a ladies phone

Got the Samsung Ultra Touch S8300, red edition, mobile phone recently. To me, it is actually maroon and it is definitely less feminine than the pink edition. Unfortunately the blue edition is not released here (yet?).



This will be my fourth Samsung phone. My first was a Sony Ericsson.

This quad-band, HSDPA (7.2 Mbps) phone is 110 x 51.5 x 12.7 mm and weighs 105g. The 2.8” (240 x 400) 16M Full Touch WQVGA AMOLED display with anti reflection is sharp and clear. Compared to my previous phone, notifications, sms and emails are easier to read now. My UOB SMS-OTP (one-time password for internet banking) is now clearly highlighted in blue and underlined!

The 8 megapixel 4x digital zoom camera features auto-focus, face detection, smile shot (which pinpoints the faces in your picture for optimal portraits) and dual power led (which ensures well-lit photos in dark surroundings).

Other features include video recording at 30fps@VGA, FM radio, MP3 player and voice recorder.

There is also a Fake Call function which simulates the phone ringing, allowing you to “escape uncomfortable and potentially dangerous situations” by pretending you need to take a call. Got a chuckle out of this and have yet to try this out.

On the minus side, battery life, and hence talk-time, is shorter than my previous phone.

The incoming call ringing time is much shorter at around 30 seconds only. However this seems to be network dependent and I'll investigate further. Previously I was with Singtel; just changed to Starhub.