TPG who won the right to be Singapore’s fourth telco in 2016 has joined M1, Singtel, and StarHub in the 5G race with the announcement that it will be conducting 5G NSA trials this year with approval from the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA) of Singapore.
TPG was the only official telco that had so far been unsuccessful in acquiring any 5G spectrum following the completed 5G spectrum bidding exercise carried out in 2020.
The company says that this trial will be carried out using part of TPG’s existing spectrum holdings which means that it will be using part of their current 2300MHz frequency band.
In July when the IMDA had proposed making new 5G spectrum available for telcos by reusing 2.1GHz spectrum currently used by 3G services, we commented on the benefit this move brought to TPG.
According to TPG, their
5G NSA network is just an upgrade of their existing Huawei based network, with the network at key locations such as
Changi Airport Jewel, The Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands, PLQ Mall, VivoCity, and Great World City being among the first to be upgraded to support TPG's 5G NSA services. They would not give a timeframe when we could accept island-wide coverage though.
TPG says that current customers on compatible handsets will be automatically configured to their
5G NSA market trial service at no extra charge. However, for mmWave connectivity, these handsets must support NR n257 and/or n258. Currently, the company says this covers the Huawei Mate 40, Vivo Y72, Vivo X60 Pro, Vivo X70 Pro, Vivo Y76 5G, and Vivo V23 5G.
They are working with other handset manufacturers including Apple and Samsung to onboard their 5G devices to their network but added that much depends on the cooperation with these device manufacturers.
As for any 5G price plans for customers, all TPG would say was that they are constantly innovating to deliver plans that are the best value for Singaporeans, and that, “Once we have further details, we shall be in touch.”
