Backwards-thinking Singtel wants to charge content providers again

Reference: Charge content providers, says Singtel CEO again

Singtel is one of the my most disliked company in Singapore.

I've nothing against them. I've not one of their customers and have not suffered any outages from their services. I, however, am interested in business related stories.

In the recent story by CNA, Singtel CEO Chua Sock Koong has once again said she wanted to charge content providers like WhatsApp, Facebook and YouTube. That idea really angers me.

That is just so backwards, but coming from a company like SingTel, it's not very surprising. Instead innovating and creating products to get more revenue, now they want to charge content providers who are providing value to their customers.

First of all, Singapore is a small market. Facebook, Whatsapp and Youtube can just block Singapore users from their website. They can easily do that and who's on the losing end? Singaporeans.

Second, most people use those websites. If Singtel is to successfully charge, then I dare say that Starhub and other ISPs will follow suit.

SingTel's business model is so outdated already. Now they want to create a new business model that benefits nobody except themselves. When you're in business, you should be providing value, a service or product, that someone is willing to pay for.


If SingTel cannot innovative, they should not pull the rest of Singapore down with them.

SingTel's practice on keeping overpayment

Reference: Telco holding on to $13k overpayment

In short, customer paid $13,873 instead of $138.73 via internet banking to SingTel. (Hey, the decimal points don't just get included by themselves.)

The customer was told that SingTel's practice is to keep the excess as credit to offset future payment.

Is it legal?

It is legal to accept money not intended for the payment of the service provided? Is this written in fine print of the contract that was signed?

And for something as simple as a refund, the customer waited for one month to no avail.

Someone should just go to their office, make a big fuss and film a viral video. Maybe that is how you can get the message through to them, through the public and then to them.

As for how much SingTel values customers and customer service, you can just make that judgement for yourself.

Singtel Starhub EPL Prisoner's Dilemma

In business, competition is suppose to bring down prices, right?

Well, not so in this case.

You might have read that Singtel won the bidding war to broadcast EPL matches for the next three years until 2013. In 2007, Starhub paid $250 million for the rights. This time, Singtel paid more than that, obviously.

This competition actually made the consumers worse off. So don't be surprised if you see sports channel getting charged more in the future.

This is also a classic case of Prisoner's Dilemma at work. The basic premise is, if the two parties just look to benefit themselves, they are actually made worse off in the end.

If you've studied Economics, you'll know the standard answer to solving this problem, and come up with a win-win situation for both.

There's a simple win-win solution to this. It's not to have the bidding war and have one of the party pay the other for not entering the bidding war. In this collaborative mode, Singtel can just bid the minimum amount and share the savings with Starhub. For example, Singtel can just bid $200m and maybe pass $50m to Starhub. Both of them can plaster their logos all over the TV. If the minimum sum is even lower, both can save even more. In this example I didn't take account into the potential earnings they can receive from the coverage, which can actually be greater than the savings, in which case, then they should bid anyway.

Of course, business isn't so simple, and people behave as if they don't know Economics in real life. So the consumers are the ones who are really paying for the bids in the end.