S’pore Fourth Telecom TPG Responds to Reports That Its Service is Lagging Behind Current Telecoms

Having a fast and stable network connection is essential in this day and age.

How else are we going to know if Camila Cabello and Shawn Mendes are dating?

Amid reports of a slower, less stable network connection, Singapore’s fourth Telecom, TPG, explained that they’re still in the early stages of their network optimisation and that their connection will improve once they launch commercial services.

In other words, it’s still early game.

TPG Slowest Network in S’pore

TPG was responding to a study by Opensignal, an international mobile analytics firm.

It showed TPG’s download speeds to be much slower than Singtel, Starhub, and M1.

TPG averaged a mere 26.1 Mbps, which was snail-like compared to Singtel’s 42.5Mbps, Starhub’s 39.5Mbps, and M1’s 36.1Mbps.

TPG’s upload speed of 5.1Mbps was the slowest as well, while M1’s (13.4Mbps), Singtel’s (12.7Mbps), and Starhub’s (12.4Mbps) were significantly faster.

But That’s not All

Even if TPG users could forgive the slow speeds, they will have a hard time dealing with the lack of mobile signal.

Opensignal’s study showed that TPG users did not have a mobile signal 4.5 percent of the time.

And if you’re thinking, that’s not bad, it is when compared to its competition: Singtel’s 1 per cent, Starhub’s 1.2 per cent, and M1’s 1.6 per cent.

In a statement, Opensignal vice-president of analysis Ian Fogg said “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.”

Indeed, how is the modern human supposed to deal with such a network outage when we can’t even part with our phones on the pooper?

On The Flipside

However, TPG’s video-streaming services were comparable to their competitors, with Opensignal reporting that their mobile-video experiences were “extremely similar” to Singtel’s, Starhub’s, and M1’s.

Though one could argue that the quality of video-streaming only matters if there’s a stable network connection in the first place.

TPG created a wave of excitement when they first announced their plan to offer users free mobile data for a year.

But with their poor network performance, it seems like they still have quite a mountain to climb if they hope to beat their telecom competitors.

But, as Ian Fogg says, “the small difference in mobile video experience shows that no operator in Singapore can afford to be complacent”.

It seems as TPG Telecom’s general manager Richard Tan said, that “the fittest will survive”.