StarHub will be rolling out Long Term Evolution (LTE) or 4G services in Singapore on September 19, while closely pegging its prices to rivals SingTel and M1 which had unveiled their services earlier.
The “green camp” will provide 4G coverage at the Central Business District as well as Changi Airport and Singapore Expo for a start, and will complete its rollout islandwide by 2013.
Like SingTel and M1, which became the first here to offer an islandwide 4G service last week, StarHub promises up to 75Mbps downloads on the new mobile network.
And like its rivals, StarHub is offering lower free mobile data bundles for users who sign up for new 4G contracts. Its reason: usage has doubled between 2009 and 2011.
ZDNet Asia has done a quick comparison on the three telcos’ prices so far. M1 is the most expensive – it believes it can hold that price for now since it has the widest coverage – while SingTel and StarHub are very close in their basic pricing.
The battle is expected to intensify in the coming weeks. All three telcos will be keen to lock in users with sales of a new LTE-enabled iPhone 5 expected to be unveiled on Wednesday.
Three years ago, when the iPhone 3GS was launched, all three threw in a generous 12GB of free data, only to now cut back the data bundles because usage has pushed costs further up than expected.
UPDATE: This article originally showed a chart that said the free Speed Boost from StarHub was to run until March 31, 2013. The telco has since updated the end date as December 31, 2013.
