Singtel 4G Experience

Media Invite

As a person always on the move, good mobile connectivity is always important! If you are a Internet Junkie like myself, you will love the 4G network that Singtel is offering!

I know we all have our complaints about Internet Connectivity, but ever since Singtel has enhanced its network, and given us the luxury of 4G, I have been enjoying my surfing experience even more!

Yes it is true! And that’s why more users are ditching their 3G user sets for 4G friendly Smartphones. As reported by the Straits Times, Singapore is now ranked 4th in 4G adoption with South Korea, the United States and Japan, being the other 3 leaders (in that order).  With 11% of the Singapore population on 4G, will you be the next person to make the switch?

If you are looking for a reliable Service Provider, you will be glad to know that Singtel has just recently completed it’s $150 million upgrade of its 4G mobile network and has promised to serve customers with an improved network that will offer faster speeds of up to 150Mbps and improved coverage of 95 per cent of Singapore. This promise is definitely more than what the other 2 competitors are offering!

Being curious to find out how much faster the 4G network was, I decided to put the speed issue to the test. Using the latest Samsung S4 (4G Network) and pitting it against the Samsung S3 (3G network), I installed a speed test application, and put the 2 phones side by side.

Are you ready for the results?

1) Here are the speeds that I got at the Iconic Ion Orchard Junction near Wheelock place.

With the 4G network, I had download speeds of 22,532 kbps, and upload speeds of 26,362 kbps.

How fast is that compared to the 3G Network?

Compared to the 3G Network, the speed of the 4G network made the old Network slow and laborious.

The 3G network had download speeds of only 1839 kbps (4G was 22,532 kbps) and upload speeds on only 878 kbps (4G was 26,362 kbps).

Not wanting to base my results on just 1 location, I decided to drive on down to Newton Circus, to try out the speed test over there.

2) At the famous Newton Food Centre, I got relatively the same speeds on the 4G network.

On 4G, I had download speeds of 21,592 kbps, and upload speeds of 27,506 kbps.

The 3G network had download speeds of only 3766 kbps (4G was 21,592 kbps) and upload speeds on only 1027 kbps (4G was 27,506 kbps).

With 4G, users can therefore expect to load web pages in an instant, watch videos with less than 1 second buffering, and download a 20mb file in less than 20 seconds.

As we can see, the 4G network speeds are absolutely awesome! However, we must bear in mind that the 4G is only available for data and not for voice calls!

This street level, high speed internet as well as indoor coverage is available nationwide in more than 550 buildings, including shopping malls, hotels and other commercial properties.

Due to red tape and slow approval from owners of buildings, the 4G network is currently limited on Street level and not in MRT  tunnels!  Therefore, if you take the train to work, one can only get access to the 3G network. Hopefully, things will be able to change soon, if the authorities and owners of buildings can give faster approval to the service providers.

What are the current improvements for the 3G Network?

SingTel has upgraded more than 240 sites across Singapore in their on-going accelerated  network enhancement programme.  Over 90% of 3G upgrades at HDB estates in Singapore have also been completed.

For example, I frequent the Singapore Expo and I used to get terrible network coverage over there. The internet speeds used to be crawling… However, things have changed, since Singtel has upgraded its network and it has completed 90% of it’s network upgrade. Singtel’s 3G network is set to offer download speeds of up to 42Mbps.  This is double the 21Mbps speed of existing 3G networks. 

To track the enhancement, please visit: http://info.singtel.com/personal/4G/network-coverage#.

If you are thinking of switching over to 4G, some of us may be having our reservations. Many of the ads today talk about a 2 GB Cap.

And when we look at the ads, we are thinking, am I going to exceed the cap given to me and start paying lots more on my mobile expenses!

Well, the good news is that if you are an average user like me, who checks facebook or twitter, uploads instagram photos, surfs the internet and checks his email, you will be glad to know that those applications only use at most 1 GB of data. Statistically, less than 10% of Singtel users exceed the 2GB limit.

Unless you are always uploading gigantic files,  or using your mobile data line to play online games, an average consumer is generally quite safe. Furthermore, you can also monitor on your data usage.

Here are some quick tips:

1.  Subscribers can check their data usage via *3282 (*DATA) or My SingTel app
2. SingTel also has proactively put in place alerts to notify customers who exceed their bundled data
3. Should SingTel Subscribers choose to exceed data, there’s DataMore VAS which customers can subscribe to so as to add on to their current data plan.

So if you don’t get any alerts, you are safe!

Here are some other Smart Tips on Data consumption for consumers:

If you are thinking about the 4G network, check out Singtel for more details!