Singtel said on Friday (Jul 21) it will launch near-gigabit mobile data speeds at selected high-traffic outdoor locations, starting with Orchard Road. At 800Mbps, it is Southeast Asia's fastest gigabit-class LTE mobile data speed, and is nearly twice as fast as its current nationwide mobile data speed of 450Mbps, the telco said in a news release. Starting Friday, Singtel customers with Sony Xperia XZ Premium smartphones will get the 800Mbps speed at the outdoor areas of Shaw Centre, ION Orchard and Tang Plaza. Full deployment at Orchard Road, Raffles Place and Clarke Quay is slated for the end of August. More smartphone models supporting 1Gbps speeds are scheduled to be launched later this year, the telco said. The transmission speeds are achieved by scaling pre-5G technology solutions, 4x4 Multiple-Input Multiple-Output and 256 Quadrature Amplitude Modulation, coupled with triple carrier aggregation of spectrum exclusive to Singtel, it added. "As a leader in network innovation, we are committed to pushing the limits in network speeds, coverage and capacity, so we can continue delivering Singapore's best mobile experience to our customers. We look forward to rolling out more network technology enhancements this year," said Singtel's chief technology officer Mark Chong.
