In our little tiny island, there exist so many brands trying to make it to the top, and new ones who come into the market every few years or so attempt to climb their way up. Especially in the telco world.
Competition has never been tougher between the telcos in Singapore than it was in the first half of this year, with everyone crazily slashing their prices and offering new contract-free plans to attract more and more customers to switch over to them.
Besides the Big Three (Singtel, Starhub and M1), players like Circles Life and Zero Mobile joined the game too, leaving everyone spoilt for choice. It ain’t stopping there, however.
Remember TPG Telecom?
The Australian telco that made waves last year for offering a FREE 12-months plan with unlimited data for Singaporeans is set to launch officially later in the year as Singapore’s fourth telco, joining the Big Three.
With the word ‘free’, it is expected that Singaporeans would have lapped up the deal and temporarily bid goodbye to the other telcos for TPG’s free trial. That’s exactly what happened, by the way.
The question of how the new player matches up to the senior telcos was left unanswered previously, but now we have our answer.
It’s So Much Slower
Opensignal, an international mobile analytics firm, did a study comparing the speeds and signals between the four main telcos in Singapore and revealed the findings on Friday, 12 July.
It was found out that TPG’s speeds were much slower than the other three telcos, and had a much weaker signal as well.
For download speed between February to May, TPG came in dead last at 26.1 megabits per second (Mbps). This was followed by 36.1 Mbps for M1, 39.5 Mbps for Starhub and 42.5 Mbps for Singtel. If you’re someone who likes downloading a lot of videos and games and would appreciate a fast process, you know which telcos to avoid.
As for uploading speed, it wasn’t any better – TPG fell far behind the others at 5.1 Mbps. StarHub’s was 12.4 Mbps, Singtel’s 12.7 Mbps and M1’s 13.4 Mbps.
There were many times where TPG users also experienced a lack of signal, spending 4.5% of that time without a mobile signal, which was much more than M1’s 1.6%, StarHub’s 1.2% and Singtel’s 1%.
“While this may not seem like much, when you consider that most people spend large parts of their time at home or at work where they likely have a good signal, these small differences will be considerably more significant when users are moving around Singapore, through its streets, shopping malls and especially on Singapore’s metro where users are accustomed to good mobile service,” said the vice-president of analysis at Opensignal, Mr Ian Fogg.
He’s right though – I wouldn’t like slow data or low signal while I’m out. How will I watch my Korean dramas on the train to work then?!
Requirements Must Be Met
At the end of last year, TPG did manage to meet the operational requirement of having islandwide outdoor coverage. In order to carry on, however, they still have to achieve coverage in all road tunnels and inside building areas by the end of this year, and coverage in underground MRT stations and lines by the end of 2021. Those are some huge goals.
It’s going to be hard for TPG to break into the already saturated telco market in Singapore, experts say. According to some commentaries, “TPG’s infrastructure investment in Singapore was not significant enough to attain or leapfrog the standards of the other telcos.”
I mean, after hearing that they provide the slowest data, who would choose them? For such a small nation, we have so many telco options as well, so a fourth one wouldn’t really be necessary either.
So if TPG really wants to be recognised as the reliable fourth telco in Singapore, they have to step up their game.
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