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5G Finally Arrives In Singapore With StarHub Launching Service Now

For a country as technologically-advanced as Singapore, it has often found itself lagging behind in the cellular sector. Of the 88 countries that first harnessed 5G connectivity when it was first commercially deployed in 2019, Singapore was surprisingly not among them. Up until now, at least.

Local telco StarHub has announced the island nation’s first-ever official 5G service, starting now, 18 August 2020. The service will be first available with StarHub’s new Mobile+ or Biz+ mobile plans, which will let consumers enjoy (somewhat) unlimited power in terms of speed and latency on their compatible mobile devices, including the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra 5G, Samsung Galaxy Note 20 Ultra 5G, and Huawei P40 Pro+.

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At the time of writing, StarHub’s 5G network currently covers approximately 53% of Singapore’s more populated areas, with plans to expand it to about 70% come September 2020. The current areas that will support 5G include the more densely-populated residential areas, such as Ang Mo Kio, Bedok, Clementi, Jurong, Woodlands, Tampines, and Yishun, as well as generally-frequented commercial and financial districts, including Orchard and Central Business District.

The full list of areas that support StarHub’s 5G service currently can be seen below:

As for the plans themselves, Mobile+ is the more commercial 5G service. Subscribers will enjoy free entertainment, massive data bundles and outgoing talktime. Additionally, subscribing to it will grant access to:

  • Free 12-month subscription to StarHub TV+ (worth S$9.90/month) with the ability to stream up to 20,000 hours of popular Korean, Chinese and English content on demand
  • Free 1-month access to cloud gaming service Antstream Arcade (worth S$8.90/month) with the ability to stream over 1,000 arcade games through the service

Biz+ is StarHub’s more business-centric 5G service, which enables firms to adopt a more flexible work space in and out of office. Consumers who take the plan on will be armed with various tools to foster this flexible work culture, including large data bundles, unlimited access to technical support and two device swaps within 24 months with free delivery to any location in Singapore via StarHub SmartSupport.

StarHub’s 5G service is currently running as an early trial on a 2,100MHz spectrum on a non-standalone architecture, similar to other overseas 5G networks, and will run until 16 Feburary 2021.

After which, StarHub will upgrade to a 3.5GHz spectrum on a standalone architecture by mid-2021. This will not just provide blazing fast speeds not just for mobile devices, but also secure private networking to facilitate the manufacturing of various next-gen technology, including fully-autonomous drones, robots and vehicles (hello, Spot), and such.