Singapore Telecommunications Limited, together with its subsidiaries, provides services and solutions in fixed, mobile and data communications, Internet, IT and consultancy, and satellite.
Wireline services include cable-based and satellite-based fixed telecommunications network services, such as domestic and IDD services, leased lines, data communications, lease of satellite capacity, Inmarsat, and Internet services.
Wireless services comprise mobile telecommunications services, such as cellular and paging services, and sale of handsets and pagers.
Information technology and engineering services portfolio consists of information technology consultancy, systems integration, and engineering services.
Other businesses include subscription television; technical and management consultancy services; ownership and chartering of barges; provision of storage facilities for submarine cables and related equipment; billing services; IT disaster recovery services; operation and maintenance of fibre optic network between Brisbane and Cairns; research and development of software; and managing and operating a call centre for telecommunications services.
Singapore Telecommunications provides its services to corporate and consumer markets primarily in Singapore and Australia. The company was founded in 1879 and is headquartered in Singapore, Singapore. Singapore Telecommunications Limited is a subsidiary of Temasek Holdings (Private) Limited.
SingTel also has extensive overseas investments in Mobile operators around Asia. These include Bharti Airtel of India and Telkomsel of Indonesia.
Starhub
StarHub, Ltd., an info-communications company, provides a range of information, communications, and entertainment services over its fixed, cable, mobile, and Internet platforms for residential and commercial customers in Singapore.
Mobile services include 3G that enables users to make video calls and 3.5G that offers broadband Internet access over mobile phone; mobile voice services; mobile data services, including video downloads, Web SMS, MMS animation and wallpapers, MMS retrieval centre, Disney mobile, mobile ESPN premiership, and themes, as well as call, MP3, and true tones; green prepaid card; and roaming services.
Cable TV services comprise operation of news, movies, entertainment, sports, music, and education channels.
Broadband services include mobile and home broadband access, as well as other Internet services; and fixed network services comprise voice, data, Internet, and wholesale services for businesses.
StarHub offers online value-added services, such as online music portal; email and broadband content filtering service, family access network, and anti-virus email scan services; data/Web storage services; corporate portal and IP-VPN solutions; and content creation and development solutions.
It is also involved in the sale of customer premise telecommunication equipment. The company was incorporated in 1998 and is based in Singapore, Singapore. StarHub, Ltd. is a subsidiary of Asia Mobile Holdings Pte., Ltd.
MobileOne
MobileOne, Ltd. provides cellular mobile communications services in Singapore. It provides
a range of mobile voice and data communications services over its 2G/3G/3.5G network.
international call services to mobile and fixed line users; and wireless broadband Internet services to home, office, and mobile users.
a range of mobile voice, nonvoice, and value-added services on its cellular network and as an operator.
It has a network of operator-owned retail shops (M1 Shop) and operator-appointed distributor outlets in Singapore. As of December 31, 2007, MobileOne operated approximately 13 M1 shop outlets, as well as an e-shop, which sells mobile phones and accessories online. The company also had approximately 1,535,000 mobile customers comprising 856,000 postpaid customers and 679,000 prepaid customers.
In addition, it involves in the research and development of mobile telecommunications product and services, as well as provision of after sales support and customer services. MobileOne has a partnership with Vodafone to provide a range of wireless business products and solutions, as well as has a joint venture with PLDT (SG) Retail Service Pte, Ltd. to provide prepaid mobile services. The company was founded in 1994 and is headquartered in Singapore, Singapore.
Financials
The following is a comparative financial analysis of the three companies:
Profitability:
As can be seen SingTel has the highest margins whereas Starhub has the highest profitability ratios. However, SingTel has contributions from associates above the EBITDA line, so this skews the results.
Leverage & Multiples:
SingTel has the strongest leverage ratios. However it is also the most expensive, compared to M1 which is the cheapest stock, and has the highest yield.
Two months ago, Lee Kuan Yew, Minister Mentor of Singapore and Chairman of GIC, made the following statements about oil prices, as reported by the Straits Times:
Oil prices 'unlikely to rise further' March 8, 2008 (Straits Times)
OIL prices are not likely to go higher, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew said yesterday.
As crude oil prices hit US$105 (S$145) per barrel, MM Lee believes it is not likely to creep further up to US$110.
'The oil suppliers are testing the limits. They believe that China and India now form a new long-term base demand. They may be right,' he said.
'I don't think it can go up US$110, US$120, US$150 and the world economy goes on. Inflation will go through the roof.
'Economies of the West will go down, hyper-inflation in many developing countries. So it will go into reverse. There's no projection right to the end.'
Goldman Says Oil `Likely' to Reach $150-200 a Barrel By Nesa Subrahmaniyan
May 6 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil prices may rise to between $150 and $200 a barrel within two years because of a lack of adequate supply growth, Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analysts led by Arjun N. Murti said in a report.
``The possibility of $150-$200 per barrel seems increasingly likely over the next six-24 months, though predicting the ultimate peak in oil prices as well as the remaining duration of the upcycle remains a major uncertainty,'' the Goldman analysts wrote in the report dated May 5.
Global fuel demand growth is outpacing gains in output. China, the world's fastest growing major economy, has more than doubled oil use since New York crude dropped to this decade's low of $16.70 a barrel on Nov. 19, 2001. That's soaked up most of the world's spare capacity amid supply cuts in Nigeria, Iraq and Venezuela.
Well well, wrong again, Mr. Lee Kuan Yew.
Wrong on energy, and wrong on banking.
Not only are the industry's most respected analysts holding opinions diametrically opposite to you, the world's most respected investors, such as Warren Buffett and Jim Rogers, have also made the opposite investment decisions compared to you.
Seriously, what is Lee Kuan Yew doing as the Chairman of GIC, Singapore's $300 billion investment fund? The man isn't qualified for the post!
Singapore's GIC May Seek More Bank Assets, Lee Says By Haslinda Amin and Linus Chua
April 30 (Bloomberg) -- Government of Singapore Investment Corp. may add more bank assets to its $18 billion of investments in UBS AG and Citigroup Inc. as it chases stable returns over periods as long as 30 years, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew said.
The Singapore sovereign wealth fund, which manages more than $100 billion, bought stakes in the two banks as they sought to repair balance sheets after writedowns linked to U.S. subprime mortgages. GIC, as the fund is known, may hold the stakes for two to three decades, said Lee, who's GIC's chairman.
``If there are other banks of the quality of the two that we bought into, with the promise and the capabilities and inherent capabilities to recover, we have got the liquidity to meet it, to make such an investment,'' Lee, 84, said in a Bloomberg Television interview late yesterday. ``We will not rule it out.''
Buffett says U.S. in recession; banks to face pain Sun May 4, 2008 7:51pm EDT
OMAHA, Nebraska (Reuters) - Warren Buffett on Sunday said he does not expect financial markets to panic as write-downs and losses for bad debts mount in the financial services industry, but said those losses were not over "by a long shot."
The world's richest person, who runs Berkshire Hathaway Inc, said at a press conference the Federal Reserve brought markets back from a precipice in March in helping broker JPMorgan Chase & Co's purchase of Bear Stearns Cos, which was on the brink of bankruptcy.
"There's going to be more pain, sure," Buffett said. "The action of the Fed, in terms of Bear Stearns, prevented in my opinion the contagion where you're essentially going to have bank runs on the investment banks ... The idea of a financial panic ... has been pretty well taken care of. That was a watershed event."
He added, though: "That doesn't mean the losses are over by a long shot ... We've looked at some of the investment banks, and it's clear some more losses are going to be incurred."
Is Lee Kuan Yew listening?
He showed he clearly didn't listen to Jim Rogers by making comments about GIC possibly buying into more banks. And he most probably isn't listening to Warren Buffett either. Hell, Lee doesn't even really understand Warren Buffett's investment philosophy.
Buffett was speaking at his annual shareholder meeting, and had more to add:
In a question-and-answer session at the shareholder meeting, Buffett said that from a risk perspective, some banks got ``too big to manage.''
Sound familiar? What's the biggest bank in the world? I think it's one of the banks that Lee Kuan Yew's GIC invested in: Citigroup! which according to LKY, has
"an enormous spread worldwide as a retail bank".
Well, now we really know what an "enormous spread" is - it's a liability.
To finish off, be sure that it's not just about words, but it's also about making prudent investment decisions. Warren Buffett, like LKY & GIC, had the chance to pick up a stake in the banks. But Mr Buffett chose differently:
And Mr Buffett said banks need better risk management. He said he recently considered the prospects of a large investment bank, which he did not identify, by reading its 270-page annual report. He said he highlighted 25 pages where he did not understand what he had read.
'I decided not to pick that one,' Mr Buffett added.
Lee Kuan Yew and GIC, however, decided to plonk billions into Citigroup and UBS, now two of the greatest loss making banks since the credit crunch began.
Who do you think made the correct decision? Mr. Buffett or Mr. Lee?
I seriously think there's no debate!
---------------- [Update - A reader has kindly informed: "LKY is a senior advisor to Citigroup which means that he get millions off from Citigroup from deal, salary and payment every month, every year. http://www.citigroup.com/citigroup/press/2006/060905c.htm Please add this important disclosure as it might shred light why LKY is so eager to invest in frailing banks."]
As of the writing of this post, it has been no less than 65 days since Mas Selamat made his escape from the Whitney road detention center (WRDC). Most of the attention and writings in the blogosphere and the press to date surround the question of whether DPM Wong Kan Seng should resign from his post. Especially taking center stage has been the manner of the government's accountability and the way PM Lee Hsien Loong exonerated DPM Wong from any fault with regards to Mas Selamat's escape.
While these are certainly important and valid issues to raise, I fear that harping over whether WKS should resign is to risk losing the forest for the trees. Yes, WKS is the minister overseeing the ISD and the WRDC. But demanding his resignation because of the operational lapses at WRDC is a tough act, as WP Opposition leader Low Thia Khiang found out when he was forced into an embarrassing silence by the PM. This is simply because it is difficult to draw a direct link between Wong Kan Seng and the lack of grills on the window that Mas Selamat used to escape.
What, perhaps, is more telling about the competence of the government, and what netizens need to turn their attention to, is the fact that the cabinet ministers are now directly responsible for the recapture of Mas Selamat. There is no doubt about their responsibility for the coordination of National Security and there is no question that they are ultimately responsible for a failure to recapture Mas Selamat.
Mas Selamat has been at large for a lengthy period of time. If Mas Selamat is still in Singapore, then we seriously have to question the competence of our internal security forces for being unable to catch the man in tiny Singapore. If Mas Selamat has escaped our shores, again we have to question the competence of our internal security forces and border defences for letting the man escape.
Here is the low down on the main characters involved:
1.Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong as the head of the government will bear overall responsibility for the coordination of the various ministries and government bodies responsible for the capture of Mas Selamat. The Prime Minister's Office oversees the National Security Coordination Secretariat (NSCS), tasked with national security planning and the coordination of policy and intelligence issues. A branch of the NSCS, the Joint Counter Terrorism Centre (JCTC), is a multi-agency centre which provides strategic analysis of terrorism-related issues to support policy-making and the development of counter-terrorism capabilities; as well as providing strategic early warning of terrorism-related developments. 2. Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng is the Minister for Home Affairs, and oversees the following government bodies directly related to Mas Selamat's recapture:
Singapore Police Force (SPF) - The SPF is the main agency tasked with maintaining law and order in the city-state. Part of the SPF is the Special Operations Command (SOC), a frontline unit grouping together various specialist units into a single strategic reserve of the regular forces to be called upon in any contingency and serious case of public disorder. They will no doubt be the frontline involved in the domestic search and recapture of Mas Selamat.
Internal Security Department (ISD) - The ISD's mission is to confront and address security threats, including international terrorism, foreign subversion and espionage. The ISD also monitors domestic counterterrorism, international counterterrorism, surveillance, apprehension of suspected militants or terrorists and protection of Singapore's national borders.
Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) - The ICA is in charge of the security of the territory of the nation and goods entering the country as well as foreigners entering the country. Conversely, it will also be in charge of preventing escaped terrorists from passing through the checkpoints under its jurisdiction.
3. Deputy Prime Minister Shunmugam Jayakumar is the Coordinating Minister for National Security. The Co-ordinating Minister chairs an inter-ministerial committee comprising the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Minister for Home Affairs and the Minister for Defence. His responsibility is to oversee counter-terrorism in Singapore, by co-ordinating the NSCS, mentioned above. 4. Minister of Defence Teo Chee Hean is entrusted with overseeing the defence needs of the Republic of Singapore. The Ministry of Defence oversees the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF), of which at least 2 branches are directly involved:
The SAF Military Police Command is the military police unit of the Singapore Armed Forces, and whose men have been directly involved in the search for Mas Selamat.
The Singapore Navy will no doubt be tasked with patrolling the shores of Singapore to prevent the escape of Mas Selamat by water.
Conclusions
As you can see, there are direct links between ministerial responsibility and the recapture of Mas Selamat. Netizens, bloggers, MPs and the opposition would do well to focus on these links, rather than to have their attention diverted by the tenuous relationship between the WRDC escape and Wong Kan Seng.
The leadership of Government Singapore is to be truly tested in the coming days.
GIC a few months ago took significant stakes in global banking giants UBS and Citigroup. The share prices of these companies have since taken a tumble due to the impact of the credit crisis, but according to GIC, that's no worry, since GIC has taken these investments with a 'long term view.' In addition to GIC's existing investments in those banks, Lee Kuan Yew, Chairman of GIC and Minister Mentor of Singapore, has gone on the record as saying:
Singapore's GIC may invest in more banks Reuters, April 30
The Government of Singapore Investment Corp may invest in more banks in Europe and the United States if it gets the chance, adding to its stakes in beleaguered bank UBS and Citigroup, its chairman told Bloomberg TV.
"If there are other banks of the quality of the two that we bought into, with the promise and the capabilities and inherent capabilities to recover, we have got the liquidity to meet it, to make such an investment," Lee, 84, said in a Bloomberg Television interview late yesterday. "We will not rule it out."
"We are buying something that we intend to keep for the next two to three decades and grow with them", he said, adding that GIC was a long-term investor.
After throwing in billions of dollars into credit-crunch battered financial institutions, Lee Kuan Yew is prepared to deploy more capital into this area. Ever confident about GIC's investments, the octogenarian further defended GIC's decisions:
"The franchise of the banks, the expertise that they have, under proper leadership, they will be able to recover and rise again ... Will there be another Swiss bank like UBS for wealth management? I doubt it, we doubt it, that is why we invested in it." Citigroup, he added, had "an enormous spread worldwide as a retail bank".
Interesting rationale. According to Lee Kuan Yew, UBS and Citigroup have "inherent capabilities to recover" from the credit crisis. Well, this is quite a debatable statement.
Just a few months after GIC's investments, recovery of the banking sector is far from sight. Instead, the banks are scrambling to raise more capital to deal with the damage the credit crunch has dealt them:
Citigroup, Merrill Lead Record Week of Bond Offerings By Bryan Keogh and Gabrielle Coppola
April 25 (Bloomberg) -- Citigroup Inc. and Merrill Lynch & Co. led $45.3 billion of U.S. corporate bond offerings, the busiest week on record, as financial companies sold debt at the highest yields since April 2001.
Sales compare with $31.2 billion last week and an average this year of $18 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Citigroup, the biggest U.S. bank by assets, sold $6 billion of hybrid bonds in the company's largest public debt offering, while New York-based securities firm Merrill Lynch raised $9.55 billion by issuing debt and preferred securities.
Bond offerings soared as investors grew more optimistic financial companies can recover from $309 billion of writedowns and credit losses tied to the collapse of the subprime-mortgage market. Banks and securities firms sold 85 percent of investment- grade debt this week, Bloomberg data show. High-yield bond issuance swelled to the most since November.
An inherent ability to recover from the crisis? Not without a lot of additional capital - extra capital which is going to dilute your existing stakes.
Citigroup Sells $3 Billion of Stock to Boost Capital By Bradley Keoun
April 29 (Bloomberg) -- Citigroup Inc., the U.S. bank hit with writedowns on subprime mortgages and bonds, is selling $3 billion of stock two weeks after reporting its second straight quarterly loss.
The shares are being sold in a public offering, New York- based Citigroup said today in a statement. Citigroup already has raised more than $30 billion of capital since December. A weakening U.S. economy and rising consumer delinquencies forced Chief Executive Officer Vikram Pandit to rescind assurances earlier this year that the bank didn't need to raise more funds.
"This was extremely disappointing," William Fitzpatrick, an equity analyst at Optique Capital Management in Racine, Wisconsin, said in a Bloomberg Television interview. "We were hoping they wouldn't have to go the equity markets like this."
Citigroup's issuance of equity financing is implicit acknowledgement that it won't be able to deal with the upcoming problems in the credit markets without substantial help. Add to that a weakening US economy and a looming recession, the clouds on the horizon are only getting darker.
Morgan Stanley realised this in its latest research report on the banking sector, painting a very bleak picture of the road ahead. This is in stark contrast to investors (including GIC) who have been calling an end to the banks' credit woes:
Morgan Stanley sees big bank woes just beginning Monday April 28, By Joseph A. Giannone
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Morgan Stanley analysts on Monday told clients to "sell the rally" in financial stocks, slashing forecasts for big bank earnings and warning that the current credit crunch is only just beginning.
In aggregate, Morgan Stanley reduced its estimates for 2008 large bank earnings by $17 billion, or 26 percent, and reduced 2009 forecasts by $13 billion, or 15 percent. The analysts expect higher loan losses and expenses, offset by higher net interest income, though profits could fall further still if the Federal Reserve stops lowering interest rates.
"More capital hikes and dividend cuts (are) coming as our credit deteriorates and forward earnings decline," analysts led by Betsy Graseck wrote in a report. "We think we are only in the third inning of the credit cycle and expect this credit cycle will be worse than (the slump in) 1990-91."
Just for the record, a baseball game usually has nine(9) innings. Morgan Stanley's declaration that we are only in the third inning of the credit cycle, simply says we're not even a third of the way through the game. A Seeking Alpha contributor has also observed:
The credit markets have improved, in terms of increased liquidity, with the Fed opening up the discount window for investment banks. However, the real economy, which has had only a minimal impact on the financial markets thus far, is deteriorating rapidly. Home prices are continuing to decline, costs of living are continuing to increase (look at the price of oil and food for examples), and the job market is reeling. The real economy will come back around and hit the financial institutions far harder than the freeze in the credit markets did. The Fed put out one fire, but threw gasoline on the other - through massive inflation - and we have not even begun to witness the effects this will have on our economy.
Well, well, it appears Lee Kuan Yew doesn't seem so wise any more. Certainly not as wise as Warren Buffett, whose Berkshire Hathaway has stayed away from picking up stakes in these big banks. And its just as well that we clearly see the difference here, as GIC and Temasek have been repeatedly using slogans to "invest for the long term," to parade themselves as value investors of the Buffett kind.
But Lee Kuan Yew doesn't really understand Warren Buffett. He also said in the interview with Bloomberg:
'[Buffett] has a different view. He has to give returns to his investors year by year. We don't have to. We have to think in terms of the next 10, 20, 30 years. We are buying into something which we intend to keep for the next two, three decades and grow with them.'
But I think anybody who knows Warren Buffett knows that Buffett's favourite investment horizon is forever, and that the investment legend has repeatedly stressed that Berkshire's focus is not on the quarter-to-quarter or year-to-year earnings. In all his writings to shareholders, one can clearly discern that Buffett has his eye on the long term future. Furthermore, Buffett's track record of consistently outperforming the market spans a good 50 years... Thus, for Lee to say the Buffett is narrowly focused on the year-to-year performance of his company, is to demonstrate a gross and fundamental misunderstanding of Buffett's investment philosophy - and thus it was ridiculous for Lee Kuan Yew to claim that GIC has significantly different obligations to its shareholders compared to Berkshire.
Finally, let's not forget Jim Rogers' warning to Singapore's Sovereign Wealth Funds earlier this year:
"It grieves me to see what Singapore is doing. They are going to lose money," he added, referring to investments by Government of Singapore Investment Corp and Temasek in Citigroup, Switzerland's UBS and Merrill Lynch.
I think that just about sums up what is going to happen.
Singapore's Next-Gen NBN OpCo RFP was released earlier this month. The race is much more open for the OpCo than the NetCo because of the lower barriers to entry and lower capital investments involved. However, despite this, I think that the only bid that truly makes sense for the NGNBN OpCo is the City Telecom - M1 consortium.
1. The operational separation is extremely onerous for the wireline incumbents, and severely dilutes the attractiveness to StarHub and SingTel.
One of the requirements of the OpCo is that it has to be operationally separated from its affiliates. This means that OpCo has to:
Operate in all respects on a standalone basis, separate from affiliated downstream operating units
Be located in separate premises
Independently formulate & make own decisions on its assets and commercial policy
Not allow its affiliated downstream operating units to have unequal influence on the formulation of commercial policy, and access to commercial information or customer confidential information
OpCo’s Board of Directors, Management and employees not to have responsibilities in any Affiliated Operator
All these requirements will mean that an incumbent like StarHub and SingTel will have to incur significant duplication of manpower and will have to come up with a different brand name for its OpCo's operations, which might in turn compete with or overlap with its non OpCo operations. In short, Operational Separation significantly restricts their flexibility in the allocation of resources and human talent across the OpCo & RSPs.
A much less onerous option for the wireline incumbents would be to simply set up separate integrated OpCos which would have no such operational separation requirements and which could be a simple extension of existing business units. Such business units would move much faster into the market and be operationally ready.
2. A non-incumbent challenger without any sort of cooperation from existing market players faces significant market and demand risk.
Firstly, a Greenfield entrant into the OpCo space faces a significant degree of risk because his OpCo grant depends largely on meeting adoption targets. Furthermore, the incumbents like SingTel and StarHub could migrate their customer base away from the NBN OpCo to their own OpCos once the five-year exclusivity is over, thereby seeking to kill the NBN OpCo, or thereby severly harming its business case.
Secondly, Bidders with a higher risk outlook will seek to be compensated for this risk with the possibility of higher returns through higher ICO prices. However, the attractiveness of ICO prices is weighted very highly in the evaluation criteria. This puts prospective bidders in a fix. In order to be profitable, the greenfield OpCo will need to win some kind of reasonable margin from his operations. However, he is contrained by the ICO evaluation and regulation plus the fact that the iDA is trying to bring about "attractive ICO prices."
These factors, amongst others, make it highly unattractive for any prospective greenfield bidder with no demand guarantee (e.g. Axia, Zitius etc.)
3. This leaves the M1 - City Telecom (CTI) consortium as the only sensible bid.
A City Telecom - M1 partnership goes a long way in circumnavigating the challenges mentioned above.
Firstly, M1 has a substantial mobile customer base in Singapore, and will be looking towards the NGNBN as an opportunity to provide fixed line services to prevent customer churn and to attract new customers. With a stake in the OpCo, M1 will ensure that its services run over the NBN OpCo, thus significantly enhancing the business case of the OpCo.
Secondly, M1 has no significant wireline operations in Singapore. This means that the operational separation is no where as onerous to M1 as the incumbents. Furthermore, with City Telecom taking a major stake in the OpCo and contributing significant manpower and operational expertise to the OpCo, this greatly relieves the need for M1 to create duplication of manpower - the OpCo business does not cannibalise or compete with M1's current core competencies. In contrast to the incumbents, the Operational Separation requirements are a relative non-issue to M1/CTI.
Conclusions
Neil Montefiore must therefore be an optimistic man. Because for a long time now, SingTel and StarHub have been attacking M1's market share because of the small telco's lack of fixed-line offerings.
I certainly hope Neil realises that he has a very real opportunity here and makes the best of it. Consumers would all benefit from genuine extra competition and from someone who appears to have a genuine understanding of what is really going on.
At last, someone with some knowledge about the Pay TV market says something wise about it in the Singapore newspapers. This time, TODAY carried an interview with M1 CEO Neil Montefiore (unlike My Paper which contained a trashy column by the bungling Lee Sze Yong):
Neil makes the following astute observation:
“I’m not in favour of bidding for content because in the end, it costs the consumer more,” he said. “It seems we’re the only example in the world where you introduce competition and the consumer pays more. It doesn’t seem to be the right model to me. I’m hoping the regulators or the content owners will change that.”
Well, Neil, I too wish the regulators or the content owners would do something about it. But I don't think that's going to happen soon.
The content owners are too elated that they are able to collect monopoly rent from the Singapore market.
The regulators are too busy covering their asses to please their political masters.
And of course SingTel wouldn't care two hoots about the inconvenience caused to consumers - they're a multi-billion dollar company who only cares about how they can break into the Pay TV market in Singapore and make more profits.
The only realistic chance consumers have is to band together and speak up and make noise through the consumer commission to enact change. Either that or boycott SingTel. It's really up to the consumers to demand and get what they want and stand up for their own consumer rights.
On another note, I think M1 will be the biggest beneficiary in the upcoming next-gen NBN project. In my opinion, an M1 consortium that does not include SingTel and StarHub (i.e. City Telecom & M1) makes the most sense for the OpCo bid. I'll explain why in a later post.
(Z74 = SingTel, CC3 = Starhub, B2F = M1) 
