M1, the last local telco to announce its plans for 4G coverage, will launch its nationwide 4G-enabled smartphone plans and internet dongle coverage by the end of September this year.
The move, which will beat rivals SingTel and StarHub in its scope, was announced in a statement announcing its mid-year financial results released on Monday.
In its release, M1 said its launch of nationwide long term evolution (LTE) services is scheduled “towards the end of the third quarter”, adding that “tiered smartphone plans” will be announced at the same time.
The telco was the first to venture into LTE in June last year, when it offered 4G coverage through its dongle modems to its enterprise customers in the financial district.
Singapore’s largest service provider SingTel may have introduced 4G for consumers first, but The Business Times reported that it currently only offers 4G coverage for about half the island area.
The paper further said that according to SingTel’s current projections, it is on track to cover 95 per cent of the island by early next year, which means that M1’s third-quarter roll-out of its island-wide 4G coverage will pre-empt the largest telco’s plans.
M1 had since September last year introduced tiered data bundles for its mobile broadband plans, the first of the three to take this step.
When contacted, a spokesperson from the telco told Yahoo! Singapore that its 4G plans will be similar to its current offering, although specific details of these plans are still not available.
The 4G roll-out promises faster internet speeds of at least 5 times the current maximum internet speeds on the current 3G network.
But the service will come at a cost as users of the 4G service will have to settle for less generous free data cap plans.
Earlier last month, SingTel and StarHub announced cuts in their 12-gigabyte data plans one after another.
For SingTel, its tiered 4G data plans kicked in at the start of this month, with reduced caps of 2GB, 3GB, 4GB and 12GB.
Monthly subscriptions for SingTel’s 24-month contract for 4G services starts at S$39.90 per month for the 2GB plan, $59.90 for a 3GB plan, $99.90 for a 4GB plan and $205 for the 12GB plan.
Meanwhile, StarHub announced that it will introduce its slashed data plans of 1GB, 2GB and 5GB “in the near future”.
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