The fiber broadband price war has started...
(vested)
TELCOS WAGE BRUISING FIBRE BROADBAND WAR
M1 slashes 1Gbps plan monthly rate to lowest yet in market; ARPUs
seen falling more.
In the cuƩhroat world of high‐speed and low‐cost fibre broadband,
the Big Three telcos are sharpening their knives.
On Thursday, M1 slashed the monthly rate for its one gigabit per
second (Gbps) fibre broadband plan from S$129 to S$49 as part of a
promoƟon for a 24‐month contract, making it the cheapest plan of
its kind in Singapore.
At this rate, it is almost a dollar cheaper than broadband rival
MyRepublic's 1Gbps plan which upended the market when it was
introduced in January for S$49.99 ‐ the cheapest plan then.
MyRepublic is unfazed by M1's latest move and told The Business
Times that it has no plans to lower its own 1Gbps rate. "We're happy
to see Singapore move towards the 1Gbps standard," a MyRepublic
spokesman said.
M1's promoƟon comes weeks aŌer SingTel launched an Unlimited
Fibre plan that offers speeds of up to 1Gbps, for S$69.90 a month.
In addiƟon to not throƩling BitTorrent traffic, SingTel's plan offers a
25 per cent discount on a third‐party virtual private network (VPN)
service ‐ an unprecedented move by the telco. A VPN is typically
used to access services that are not offered here, such as video‐ streaming sites Neƞlix and Hulu, among other things.
M1's 1Gbps price plan puts it a hair's breadth ahead of MyRepublic's
offering, price‐wise. At the same Ɵme, SingTel's VPN opƟon mimics
the feature that smaller players such as ViewQwest have been
offering.
StarHub, too, is "working on a new 1Gbps home broadband offer",
its spokeswoman said on Thursday. More details will be announced
in the coming weeks. The telco had previously offered a 1Gbps
package priced at S$395.90 a month but had disconƟnued it
"recently" in preparaƟon for the new offer, it said.
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