Singapore's Infocomm and Media Development Authority has pre-qualified ISP MyRepublic and Australian telecoms group TPG Telecom to participate in an auction for a fourth mobile license.
MyRepublic and TPG will bid for a 60 MHz lot of spectrum in the 900-MHz and 2.3-GHz bands, in an auction expected to be complete by the end of the year.
A third applicant for the auction, airYotta, has been disqualified for failing to meet the required pre-qualification criteria.
The auction will be followed by a general spectrum auction open to existing mobile operators M1, Singtel and StarHub, as well as the winner of the new entrant auction. This second auction is expected to commence in the first quarter of next year.
MyRepublic is a fiber-based ISP with a solid presence in Singapore, and a growing regional reach. The company recently arranged to launch broadband services with speeds of up to 100Mbps in Australia over the national broadband network (NBN), and also has operations in New Zealand and Indonesia.
TPG Telecom is Australia's second largest fixed line ISP and largest MVNO. The company has been steadily expanding through acquisitions and organic growth.
Singapore MVNO Circles.Life has announced it “ welcomes IMDA’s on-going efforts to support competition in the telco space.”
Circles.Life entered this year as a digital telco and has been aiming to disrupt the market with innovative offers for data-savvy customers, and looks forward to further disruption if a new entrant arrives in the market, the company said in a statement.