BusTalk: The Problem With Singtel WiFi
Dear Singtel,
Back in 2014, you announced Singtel WiFi, a service you claim will offer "premium high-speed WiFi network". It was pretty bad during the first two years; I even wrote an article about it on the now defunct Singtel Community. Three years have passed. Does it live up those claims now? Most importantly, do customers really benefit from it?
All Singtel customers subscribed to Combo 2 mobile plan or above gets 2GB of Singtel WiFi every month, with unlimited usage up to 31st July 2015. Wait, it was extended to 30th November 2015. And then again, to 29th February 2016. Did it end on 1st March 2016? Nope. Once again, it was extended to 30th June 2016. The cycle kept going, with the current deadline set on 31st December 2017. If you are going to keep extending it, why not just make it unlimited forever?
Your competitors offer 1GB more mobile data with their equivalent plans. You claim that 2GB of Singtel WiFi makes up for it, but to be honest, no it doesn't. No amount of Singtel WiFi can. Why? After 3 long years, Singtel WiFi's coverage is still pretty bad. With Speedtest app installed on my iPhone SE, I went on a long and treacherous adventure, testing the WiFi speed at every MRT station on the North South Line. Here are the results I have collected:
Out of the 25 stations I visited, only 12 had Singtel WiFi coverage and the one at Ang Mo Kio was completely unusable. Meanwhile, Wireless@SGx covered all 12 of these stations, as well as Woodlands, Admiralty and Newton. In terms of speed, Singtel WiFi is significantly faster than Wireless@SGx at most stations, although Wireless@SGx did better in some.
Of the 4 shopping malls near my house (Yew Tee Point, Lot One, Hillion and Bukit Panjang Plaza), none have Singtel WiFi, except at certain stores like KouFu and McDonald's. Heck, not even Singtel retail shops there are equipped with Singtel WiFi. As you can see, I rarely get the opportunity to make use of Singtel WiFi.
Conclusion? Singtel WiFi is really fast but Wireless@SGx, which is available to everyone for free, has much better coverage. Unless you camp at one of Singtel WiFi's hotspots to watch videos, you probably will not consume more than 1GB of Singtel WiFi every month. Also, if you only surf the web casually, public WiFi like Wireless@SG has good enough speed. Wouldn't an extra gig of mobile data be more beneficial?
Thanks for the free gig of data on my birthday month. Thanks for always picking up the call when I dial 1688. But no thanks for Singtel WiFi - it sucks.
Sincerely,
8K Guy
