Singapore’s fourth telco TPG Telecom says it will offer a free mobile data plan to the elderly as it looks to carve out a niche for itself in the heavily saturated mobile market. Finally breaking its silence on its rollout plans, the Australian-backed enterprise confirmed its intention to launch in the second half of 2018, saying that it will initially target seniors aged 65 and over with a SIM card, 3GB of mobile data, and free local voice calls for the first 24 months. A press release confirmed: ‘TPG is well on track to deliver services on its upcoming Singapore 4G mobile network in the second half of 2018,’ while executive chairman David Teoh pointed out that the newcomer will focus on ‘assisting senior citizens as our first initiative to demonstrate our commitment in improving what is available for the community,’ adding that: ‘TPG will have other exciting mobile offers for the public in the near future.’ The move to help the elderly ‘get more out of their mobile’ forms part of TPG’s commitment to the government’s ‘Smart Nation’ initiative.
As previously reported by TeleGeography’s CommsUpdate, in September 2017 TPG Telecom revealed that its in-deployment mobile network was progressing well and that it expects to attain city-wide outdoor coverage by 31 December 2018, with work currently ongoing on core network, radio equipment installation, and datacentres. The group, which won the race to become Singapore’s fourth mobile network operator (MNO) in December 2016, says that the ‘strong progress’ seen to date is in compliance with its licence obligations, noting that it has signed up a number of vendors to assist in the network build. TPG secured the coveted frequencies with a winning bid of SGD105 million (USD73.7 million), beating off a SGD102.5 million bid from rival MyRepublic at the New Entrant Spectrum Auction (NESA). It was allocated 2×5MHz in the 900MHz spectrum band and 8×5MHz at 2300MHz to provide International Mobile Telecommunications (IMT) and IMT-Advanced 4G services.