One of the largest Internet providers in all of Singapore has been making major inroads to become the fourth mobile network operator in the country, buying up significant telecommunication startups while also investing in a variety of different spectrums across the 2.5 GHz band.
For years and years now, TPG Telecom has been talking about getting into the mobile network provider service but haven’t made the kind of necessary investments in infrastructure or services to make this a reality.
However, in early April 2017, this company purchased two lots of 5 MHz spectrum in the 2.5 GHz band (spending $22.5 million in the process) which will go along with the spectrum that it purchased in December as part of the very first initiative it made to become a fourth mobile services operator in the country.
Singapore consumers in general are some of the most tech savvy in the world, and that is largely due to the fact that they have some of the most robust IT and connectivity infrastructure on the planet. Singapore is considered by many to be one of the most – if not THE most – connected nations on the planet, and the country continues to invest in its infrastructure to stay out ahead of the curve.
Even still, Singapore in general is not all that large which is why there are really only three “big dogs” in the mobile networking space. For quite a while now, TPG has been a major player in the Internet services provider industry but are looking to expand into the mobile networking side of things as they very much see high-speed mobile Internet as being the future of infrastructure not just in Singapore but around the world as well.
The new edition of 10 MHz of spectrum is going to provide them with the availability to offer extremely high speed to all of their customers without having to place unpopular bandwidth caps on top of their customers as a tradeoff. Certainly one of the true innovators in this space, TPG has definitely learned from the Internet services that they have provided for years and years now and are looking to make a major splash in the mobile world when they really mobilize.
As we highlighted above, TPG had already purchased a significant amount of mobile spectrum back in December 2016. At that point in time, the company spent $100 million to purchase ALL of the available mobile spectrum at auction (presented by the Singapore government) and have gone on record as stating that they would invest up to $400 million to become the nation’s next mobile network service provider.
It will be very, very interesting to see how these new developments shake things up in the mobile networking industry of Singapore. Services are likely to improve even more than they already have while prices drop across the board as well. These are very exciting times to live in Singapore, especially if you are in the technology or business world. These changes will have the most impact there for sure!
