Singapore Telecommunications (Singtel) has achieved over 95% in its standalone coverage for 5G nationwide over three years ahead of the regulatory target of end-2025.
The move makes Singapore the first country in the world to be fully 5G standalone ready.
The network now covers over 1,300 outdoor locations and over 400 in-building as well as underground.
Singtel was officially awarded the 3.5GHz and the millimetre wave spectrum as part of the 5G licence issued by the IMDA in June 2020. The telco was awarded an additional 2.1GHz spectrum in November 2021, which supported the achievement of the milestone, it says in a July 22 statement.
“We’re extremely excited about this important milestone for both Singtel and Singapore as nationwide standalone 5G coverage is a major leap in technology that will spur unprecedented digitalisation,” says Yuen Kuan Moon, Singtel’s group CEO.
“Despite disruptions from Covid and the knock-on impact on manpower and resources, our planners and engineers managed to accelerate our 5G deployment, working through the pandemic to lay the groundwork and build a whole new infrastructure for a secure and resilient 5G network,” he adds. “This means that Singapore can now exploit the full capabilities and best applications that 5G can offer, paving the way for innovation and new growth that will propel our country forward.”
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Further to its report, Singtel revealed that 15 live trials for the 5G@Sentosa programme are slated to be running by the end of this year.
Sentosa will serve as a testbed for public sector use cases that could be rolled out in the mainland in the next five years.
At least another 30 live trials will be running by the first half of 2023.
“Now that our nationwide 5G coverage is in place, we expect commercial adoption to accelerate. Our high speed, low latency 5G network with edge cloud and network slicing enables functions like realtime computing, data storage, data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI) services at the edge – bringing to life more mission-critical enterprise applications than before, from automated quality inspection in factories, smart city planning, connected self-driving vehicles to supercharged IoT,” says Bill Chang, CEO, group enterprise and regional data centre business at Singtel.
“Just like Singapore, which is known for its high standards, we’re deepening our expertise and establishing a strong presence in the markets we operate in. Working with our partners across Asia Pacific, we’re extending more 5G solutions and use cases to enterprises and other telecommunication service providers in the region,” he adds.
As at 10.25am, shares in Singtel are trading 1 cent lower or 0.38% down at $2.66.
