Eight Telecom discussion thread

[Jurong640]

Zym Kym???

ky. .

 

[cracker]

How so? Let's look at their roaming partners...

Eight Japan: Rakuten, KDDI
SIMBA Japan: Rakuten, KDDI
(Winner: Tie)

Eight South Korea: SK Telecom, KT
SIMBA South Korea: Uplus, KT
(Winner: Eight; SK Telecom is a better network overall than Uplus)

Eight China: China Mobile
SIMBA China: China Mobile, China Telecom, China Unicom
(Winner: SIMBA)

Eight Mongolia: Skytel
SIMBA Mongolia: (none)
(Winner: Eight)

Neither Eight nor SIMBA have any roaming partners in Russia.

I will look at it from a different perspective.
For Simba... Korea + China are part of their APAC 18G package
For eight, these 2 countries are part of their International roaming of 8GB.

Once we are in these countries... not much difference in term of coverage.. cos I had both SIMBA & Eight on my phone during my trips this year.

 

[jasonsouza77]

I have 2 phones a redmi note 11 and a poco m6. both are using eight mobile 288gb plans. did a speed test using the fast website and redmi note 11 clocked in at 50mbps whilst the poco only managed 12mbps. has anyone encountered similar? i suspect poco has an inferior network chip but im not really sure. hmmmm

 

[CPTMiller]

I have 2 phones a redmi note 11 and a poco m6. both are using eight mobile 288gb plans. did a speed test using the fast website and redmi note 11 clocked in at 50mbps whilst the poco only managed 12mbps. has anyone encountered similar? i suspect poco has an inferior network chip but im not really sure. hmmmm

For my friend case. He use a Poco C65 on Eight. The spec of the phone stated no 4G+. So only 4G icon all the time and speed similar to your poco phone too.

But I think there are Poco phone that can have 4G+ .

 

[jasonsouza77]

For my friend case. He use a Poco C65 on Eight. The spec of the phone stated no 4G+. So only 4G icon all the time and speed similar to your poco phone too.

But I think there are Poco phone that can have 4G+ .

yes if im not wrong i never saw 4g+ on the poco. but definitely yes on the redmi

 

[CPTMiller]

yes if im not wrong i never saw 4g+ on the poco. but definitely yes on the redmi

Some Poco models does suppers 4G+. I believe it's their high end models. 4G connect may be much slower then 4G+. So must check spec first before getting a Poco phone.

 

[BBCWatcher]

I will look at it from a different perspective.
For Simba... Korea + China are part of their APAC 18G package
For eight, these 2 countries are part of their International roaming of 8GB.

But you pay for that. South Korea and China are thrown in that data allotment with SIMBA’s $12 per 30 days plan, whereas Eight’s base plan costs $4 less ($8 per 30 days). You’re frequently better off buying a separate eSIM if you happen to need more roaming data than each carrier’s base plan provides.

 

[cracker]

But you pay for that. South Korea and China are thrown in that data allotment with SIMBA’s $12 per 30 days plan, whereas Eight’s base plan costs $4 less ($8 per 30 days). You’re frequently better off buying a separate eSIM if you happen to need more roaming data than each carrier’s base plan provides.

I am comparing the 8 $11.80 with SIMBA $12 plan.

I travel a fair bit in ASIA due to work requirement.... so the SIMBA oversea data plan coverage is better than 8.

 

[CPTMiller]

I will look at it from a different perspective.
For Simba... Korea + China are part of their APAC 18G package
For eight, these 2 countries are part of their International roaming of 8GB.

Once we are in these countries... not much difference in term of coverage.. cos I had both SIMBA & Eight on my phone during my trips this year.

Too bad for Eight they still put China at the 8GB category

 

[jasonsouza77]

once again i missed the promo
CEE Promotion 2025: Top up $28, get total $38 credits!

1. Promotion is valid from 22 May 00:00 till 25 May 23:59 SGT.
2. Minimum top-up of $28 per transaction required to get this promo
3. Valid for successful top up at CEE 2025 Booth 8349 or at our retailers (www.eight.com.sg/retailers). Excluding Auto top-up customers
4. Free $10 credit will take 7 working days to be tagged to your mobile line upon successful top up.
5. Number of transcations eligible for the free credit is capped at 8.
6. eight reserves the right to amend Terms & Conditions without prior notice.

 

[jasonsouza77]

ok so i just tried comparing internet speeds via USB tethering between the redmi note 11 and poco m6. as before, both sim cards are using the 288gb plan. the note achieved 62mbps whilst the m6 only managed 15mbps

 

[loganrunning]

OK, interesting. Apparently China Mobile is regarded as the best for coverage in China, so it's possible Eight offers the better roaming partner there if SIMBA can only roam onto China Telecom.

was in China recently. eight had no problems, friends on simba had occasional drops in the remote areas.
eight - CM
simba - CT
fortunately, drops didn't affect purchase transactions.

 

[BBCWatcher]

Eight has published a new list of roaming partners dated June, 2025. There are some major changes. For example, in the United States they used to roam onto Verizon (and with VoLTE support), but now they roam onto AT&T and T-Mobile (with no VoLTE support). They also list "Sprint Nextel" as a separate roaming partner, but T-Mobile acquired Sprint Nextel years ago. It terms of coverage the combination of AT&T and T-Mobile is probably more than a fair swap (especially if you have a phone that supports T-Mobile's low bands), but the loss of VoLTE is a shortcoming.

T-Mobile customers with certain phone models (such as the iPhone 13 and higher with a recent iOS update) get Starlink-provided satellite coverage in wilderness areas that T-Mobile doesn't reach. It'd be nice if Eight customers enjoy that same benefit when roaming with T-Mobile, but I wouldn't count on it.

In Malaysia DigiCelcom is added, but we already knew that since Eight announced it separately. In Indonesia Indosat is now listed with VoLTE support. In India Rel Jio is now the roaming partner, with VoLTE support. Previously Eight roamed onto BSNL and and Vodafone Idea (both without VoLTE support). In Vietnam Vietnamobile is now a roaming partner, and Vinaphone now supports VoLTE. In Japan Eight has added NTT DoCoMo (with VoLTE), generally regarded as Japan's best mobile network. France is now Orange (still without VoLTE). Italy has switched to Wind, also still without VoLTE. Ireland has switched to Hutchison 3G. That's actually Three Ireland, and (despite the name) they offer 2G, 3G, 4G, and 5G.

Note that countries with 2G and/or 3G roaming partner networks should still support SMS text messages and voice calling even without VoLTE.

Has anyone spotted any other interesting changes?

 

[limmengteck]

Eight Mobile at Mount Elizabeth / York Hotel achieved:

Download: 311 Mbps
Upload: 49.3 Mbps
Ping: 15ms

 

[A7997A]

Eight has published a new list of roaming partners dated June, 2025. There are some major changes. For example, in the United States they used to roam onto Verizon (and with VoLTE support), but now they roam onto AT&T and T-Mobile (with no VoLTE support). They also list "Sprint Nextel" as a separate roaming partner, but T-Mobile acquired Sprint Nextel years ago. It terms of coverage the combination of AT&T and T-Mobile is probably more than a fair swap (especially if you have a phone that supports T-Mobile's low bands), but the loss of VoLTE is a shortcoming.

T-Mobile customers with certain phone models (such as the iPhone 13 and higher with a recent iOS update) get Starlink-provided satellite coverage in wilderness areas that T-Mobile doesn't reach. It'd be nice if Eight customers enjoy that same benefit when roaming with T-Mobile, but I wouldn't count on it.

In Malaysia DigiCelcom is added, but we already knew that since Eight announced it separately. In Indonesia Indosat is now listed with VoLTE support. In India Rel Jio is now the roaming partner, with VoLTE support. Previously Eight roamed onto BSNL and and Vodafone Idea (both without VoLTE support). In Vietnam Vietnamobile is now a roaming partner, and Vinaphone now supports VoLTE. In Japan Eight has added NTT DoCoMo (with VoLTE), generally regarded as Japan's best mobile network. France is now Orange (still without VoLTE). Italy has switched to Wind, also still without VoLTE. Ireland has switched to Hutchison 3G. That's actually Three Ireland, and (despite the name) they offer 2G, 3G, 4G, and 5G.

In the LTE days Verizon used to be using frequency band that is quite different from what is common in Asia.
It does seems over time and with 5G things has changed significantly, but it still pays to see if your handset can handle the supported bands, esp when using a handset that does not have wide band support (typically the lower end models)

In May, eight still connects to KDDI in Japan instead of NTT DoCoMo, so this might be a really recent change.

There are changes in Bulgaria & Cambodia as well.

 

[BBCWatcher]

In May, eight still connects to KDDI in Japan instead of NTT DoCoMo, so this might be a really recent change.

NTT DoCoMo is listed as an additional roaming partner in Japan.

 

[A7997A]

NTT DoCoMo is listed as an additional roaming partner in Japan.

Understand, my point is NTT DoCoMo is not available yet in May.

 

[Modd-36]

Leporting roaming in Seoul. Seems everything is ok even inside hotel.
Only 4G. No 5G.

 

[ichinisan]

Does Eight have 5G already?

 

[Jurong640]

Does Eight have 5G already?

locally, no.