Fibre-optic start-up MyRepublic throws down the gauntlet in Singapore

Singapore welcomed a new player in the fibre broadband market last week when start-up operator MyRepublic launched a challenge to the city-state’s established telcos – Singapore Telecom (SingTel), StarHub and M1 Limited. The newcomer confirmed the launch to TeleGeography and says it is focusing more on accommodating end users’ needs, rather than touting super fast top speeds to attract retail customers, including a SGD69 (USD54.9) per month package – aimed at online gamers – which promises a ‘low latency experience’ for those involved in real time role-playing gaming, for example. In another hook designed to entice students, MyRepublic is said to be offering a SGD89 a month package, dubbed Tutor, which includes online tutorials and exam preparation tools for Primary 1 to 6. Although the start-up’s basic 100Mbps no-frills plan costs SGD59, compared to rival M1’s SGD39 offer for a similar speed connection, MyRepublic is promising no contracts to the first 100,000 people signing up to the service to allow them to drop their subscription if they feel it is not up to par. The company’s co-founder and CEO Malcolm Rodrigues has thrown down a challenge to the established Big Three, saying: ‘The government has built the best broadband network in the world, and the incumbents are not doing anything with it … They took the NGNBN [Next Generation Nationwide Broadband Network] and put it right inside their walled garden.’