Singapore’s biggest telecoms operator by subscribers Singtel has announced plans to offer home users a 10Gbps fibre-optic service, trumping rivals in what will be the city state’s fastest residential service to date. The carrier says that the ultra-high speed service will be hosted on its next generation 10 Gigabit Passive Optical Network (XG-PON), noting that trials of 10Gbps-based fibre services kicked off in May 2015 for selected customers, ahead of what it hoped would be a full commercial launch last year. Commenting on the launch, Mr Goh Seow Eng, managing director for the group’s home and consumer division, said: ‘We recognise that residential customers are using greater bandwidth and requiring faster speeds for their online activities … Our 10Gbps Fibre Home Bundle will offer households the fastest fibre broadband experience in Singapore.’ Singtel’s 10Gbps Fibre Home Bundle is priced at SGD189 (USD132.4) per month, including a 10G optical network router, a wireless dual-band AC router and installation.
According to TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database, Singtel rival M1 launched XG-PON fibre-optic broadband services in September last year over the city-state’s next generation national broadband network (Next Gen NBN), initially only available to corporate customers. Although XG-PON is due to be extended to residential users in due course, the business user plan is priced at SGD1,088 per month for a 2Gbps subscription, rising to SGD2,888 for a 10Gbps service.