Starhub or Singtel

[damianb71]

Hi, just relocated here this week from London. Need to set myself up with cable, phone and internet. I hear most people seem to get Starhub, but I also hear that Singtel now has the football and the cricket. Any ideas on what is best? I have two young children too, so its not just about the sport (although they like the football). Also which one has the best broadband / landline service to go with the cable?

Any guidance appreciated.

Cheers

[sundaymorningstaple]

Flip a coin. Look on their respective websites and determine which total programming package will fulfill the whole family's needs in the best compromise. Or, get both. (Quite of few do just that).

[damianb71]

That sounds like hard work I will do that though. Is there much difference on price?

[BillyB]

Hi, just relocated here this week from London. Need to set myself up with cable, phone and internet. I hear most people seem to get Starhub, but I also hear that Singtel now has the football and the cricket. Any ideas on what is best? I have two young children too, so its not just about the sport (although they like the football). Also which one has the best broadband / landline service to go with the cable?

Any guidance appreciated.

Cheers

Both!!

For the kids you'll probably need Starhub. I can honestly say that I don't even know if Singtel offers any basic TV channels as mine just stays on the sports channels!! For yourself, if you want to watch football and cricket, you need Singtel. You can justify it to the Mrs by telling her 'just think of all the extra $ we'll save by me not going to the pub each time the match is on. And just think how much extra time we'll get to spend together'. *delete as appropriate!!

For Singtel it will cost you roughly $50 a month for the football and cricket, and the good thing is you get to watch any premiership game you want - they show all of them across different channels. They also have all the upcoming cricket series too. I use it purely for the sport, the occasional on demand movie and nothing else. Even though I get BB and a phoneline, I've never used them.

I reckon some more IT savvy people than me can help you out with the broadband and phoneline question. One point - learn to count to ten very slowly if you need to call or go into Starhub customer service!!

[aster]

I guess you're stuck with Singtel if you want to get your Premiership, Champions League, and F1 action.

There is talk though of some sort of package sharing system where subscribers to either network will be able to sign up for the Premiership pack for instance, though I'm not sure if this is pure speculation or something that is actually moving forward as we speak.

What about the internet, how different/similar are both networks in terms of transfer speeds with the rest of the world?

[fumblyfumbler]

I'd vote for Singtel. Need my dose of F1!

StarHub's channels are mostly for children I suppose

[Rains]

I just got Starhub and they have a great package going with internet and your choice of three groups of channels. I don't think it was very expensive but it came with a wireless router and free installation.

[aster]

I don't want to have anything to do with Starhub to be honest. I'm ditching them completely with regards to phone sims, data sims, and ultimately as soon as I'm out of a Serviced Apartment I will use someone else for home tv/internet services.

Had a pretty weird experience with them lately, something that's completely bonkers...

[damianb71]

Thanks all.

In the end I went for Starhub for the internet/mobile phone/tv package (I found out I got a huge discount from my company there) - they gave me the stiff to install myself though so not sure if its set up correctly. And I have since got the Singtel sports package - so I now have two landlines in my flat but use one for office only.

Aster - very interested to hear about your bonkers experience...

[satima]

Surprisingly for many newcomers Internet in Singapore is very poor.
Both Starhub and Singtel are quite awful to be honest with you.
I use Starhub at home. Had originally selected it for better variety of packages.

Check http://www.opennet.com.sg/ to see whether your house is a part of the fiber-optic network. I assume it shall be much better than a standard ADSL.

Happy to share more tips about Starhub in case that would be interesting to anyone here.

[sundaymorningstaple]

You will find, unless you pay top tier prices, your internet access on fibre will be slower than on cable due to the throttling of the lines by Starhub. Even purchasing a 100Mbs line, it's only on local, while international pipes are restricted to 15 or 18 Mbs only. Getting a 100mbs cable connection will get you international pipes at 30mbs (still sucks but what to do).

[Calmday]

You will be disappointed with either one. Flip a coin.

[aster]

You will find, unless you pay top tier prices, your internet access on fibre will be slower than on cable due to the throttling of the lines by Starhub. Even purchasing a 100Mbs line, it's only on local, while international pipes are restricted to 15 or 18 Mbs only. Getting a 100mbs cable connection will get you international pipes at 30mbs (still sucks but what to do).

I still find it incredible that Singapore is so far behind the developed world when it comes to the internet. I mean for a country that does so many things better than anyone else, it's strange that the internet has been overlooked and neglected like this.

In general I'm not a fan of how the telecoms industry works over here. I see very little in terms of actual true market competition, sort of like a deja vu of another country I frequent where things were quite cosy between three market players until a fourth player joined the game and turned the table upside down.

Singapore is still back in the 20th century compared to the likes of Korea from what I hear, and even Thailand is said to have top-class connectivity that relegates Singapore to a lower division.

[aster]

Aster - very interested to hear about your bonkers experience...

Try paying for a service and then having it "disappear." Literally.

You show up at a service centre to see what's going on and they have no record of anything, like their database has been wiped out and your SIM was never in their system... Service/credit/everything... just gone without a trace.

I'm not one for wasting time, so I'm moving all family phones and data SIMs to Singtel.

[ksl]

Singtel will always be the better of all evils in my opinion, as their capcity is sold off to the others.

Just had a visit from Singtel tonight, and we have been offered the 50mb optical upgrade as the home is wired for it. All fees are waivered, installation $80.25 activation 53.50 and you get 1 month free.

We had the 10mb Mio at $59, it now becomes 64.90 with 21 free channels, and a new router. Can't wait to see how optical performs will be connected within the next month!

Had Singtel for 6 years, and I have been happy with the service, even though it's been a pain sometimes, they do finally come through and sort the problems out.

Many of the problems are browser related when it comes to speed, or ones own neglect of computer maintenance, you can also try to empty the DNS cache. Start ;Run; ipconfig/flushdns