MARKETPLACE AND CUSTOMERS
PRODUCT AND SERVICE QUALITY
DMAGiving our customers a great network and service experience is fundamental to our business. We continue to enhance the reliability, access and quality of our network.
Enhancing Network Reliability
Ensuring consistency in network and service performance is critical. Hence, we continue to invest in new base stations and towers, upgrade our technologies and increase our user capacity. Our total capital investment amounted to S$2.24 billion in FY2015 (Singtel S$789 million, Optus A$1.28 billion). Of this investment, S$233 million and A$793 million were invested in our mobile networks in Singapore and Australia. We invested heavily in our 4G mobile networks for enhanced indoor and outdoor coverage so that our customers in both countries can enjoy high-speed data services on the move.
Expanding Network Access
We understand the importance of customers living and working in remote communities having access to reliable mobile coverage, particularly in a large geography such as Australia. We launched the Optus 10 Satellite which provides the connection for regional and remote areas across our mobile network in Australia. In Singapore, we continue to make basic telephone services available to any person in Singapore who requests the provision of such a service, and also provide emergency call and public payphone services, despite the popularity of mobile phones.
Ensuring Quality Standards
G4-15As a leading communications group in Asia Pacific, we abide by the local laws and regulations. In Singapore, Singtel adheres to the specific quality standards set by the Media Development Authority (MDA) and Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) for the services that we offer. IDA also publishes periodic performance reports on the various operators in Singapore covering broadband, mobile, fixed telephone and fibre connection services. We continue to meet or exceed the quality of service standards for service coverage, network availability, call success and drop rates, network latency etc. These reports can be found at www.ida.gov.sg.
Despite our commitment, there have been occasional shortfalls. In FY2015, Singtel paid a total of three fines imposed by IDA and MDA totalling about S$6 million.
- A fire at the Bukit Panjang Exchange in October 2013 caused service disruptions to 60,000 fixed-line customers. We paid a S$6 million fine in May 2014 to IDA for the service outage caused by the fire.
- Two financial penalties totalling S$9,500 were levied by MDA for broadcasting two programmes containing Chinese dialect on our pay TV platform.
In Australia, there were a couple of service difficulties and outages due to our 4G upgrading work. We also experienced network service disruptions in South Australia, Western Australia and Victoria due to bushfires and in parts of Queensland due to power failures associated with the impact of Cyclone Ita in April 2014 and Cyclone Marcia in February 2015.PR9