The Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) has released its latest update on telecoms services in the city-state for the month of December 2014, showing that fixed line household penetration stood at 101.3% at the end of last year, up from 96.8% in November, as total fixed line subscriptions climbed 14,800 to 1.995 million. Of these, some 1.247 million are residential connections (up 16,600) and 747,900 are corporate lines (down 1,900). According to the IDA’s figures, fixed (population) teledensity stood at 36.5% at the start of this year, up 0.3 of a percentage point from November.
In the Singapore mobile market, the total number of mobile subscriptions (2G+3G+4G) reached 8.093 million at end-December, down marginally from 8.108 million the previous month, of which only 89,800 are now 2G/GSM connections. By contrast, the uptake of Long Term Evolution (LTE) 4G services continues apace, reaching nearly 3.182 million last year, predominantly post-paid (2.924 million) subscriptions, while 3G accounts for 4.608 million of the total – a figure down from 5.211 million in July 2014 due to the rise of 4G.
Turning to the fixed broadband segment, the IDA reported a total of 1.451 million connections at end-2014, of which 103,400 are corporate wired accounts. Of the total, xDSL accounts for 236,300 users (Nov-14: 243,200), cable for 503,800 (510,600), with fibre supplanting more ‘traditional’ broadband platforms, accounting for 708,000 lines by 31 December, up from 692,000 in November; other platforms accounted for just 2,600 lines. The residential wired broadband penetration rate stood at 106.0% at the end of the period under review, according to the IDA’s data.