SingTel has become Singapore's first mobile operator to offer LTE services for consumer smartphone users, even as it slashed the data allocations for its 3G and 4G plans.
The operator has today started offering LTE connectivity to customers acquiring one of three 4G-capable handsets through a postpaid data plan.
SingTel launched dongle-only LTE services through its FDD-LTE network in December last year. The company currently covers around 50% of Singapore with the network, and aims to achieve island-wide coverage by early next year.
The services will be provided at the same price as existing 3G plans, SingTel announced.
But the company also revealed plans to cut the data allowance on both its entry-level 3G and 4G plans to 2GB, from 12GB previously.
The company will offer tiered pricing for its Flexi smartphone line, with the cost ranging from S$39.90 ($31) for the 2GB allocation, up to S$205 for 12GB. Previously all the plans came with 12GB of data.
Justifying the change, SingTel CEO of consumer Singapore Yuen Kuan Moon said the company needs to “break away from the traditional one-size-fits-all approach, which is not sustainable in the long term. Today, 64% of mobile data on our network is consumed by 10% of our subscribers.”
Market watchers have been expecting Singaporean operators to cut down on big data caps for some time. Now that SingTel has made the first move, it would not be surprising to see its rivals follow suit.