StarHub
Encyclopedia
StarHub Limited is a full-fledged telecommunications company providing a full range of services over mobile, internet and fixed platforms in Singapore
. It is the second largest mobile
operator.
Its top four direct shareholder
s are ST Telemedia
, Qtel
, NTT Communications Corp
and Temasek Holdings
.
StarHub was awarded the license to provide fixed network and mobile services on 7 May 1998, when the government announced that telecommunications sector in Singapore would be completely liberalised by 2002. In 2000, the government announced that the date for complete liberalisation would be brought forward to 2000, and the 49% cap on foreign ownership of public telecommunications companies in Singapore would be lifted. StarHub was officially launched in April 2000 with ST Telemedia, Singapore Power
, BT Group
and Nippon Telegraph and Telephone
(NTT) as its major shareholders.
In January 1999, StarHub acquired internet service provider
CyberWay and it became a subsidiary within the StarHub group. It was renamed as StarHub Internet on 3 December 1999 in a move to integrate CyberWay into the StarHub brand.
In 2001, Singapore Power divested its shares in StarHub and sold its 25.5% stake to ST Telemedia for S$400 million. BT Group subsequently divested its 18% stake as a result of consolidation, after accumulating debt acquired during the bidding round for 3G licenses in the United Kingdom.
In 2002, the company merged with Singapore's sole cable television operator, Singapore Cable Vision. As a result of the merger, it acquired SCV's cable television as well as broadband internet access operations.
StarHub was publicly listed on the Singapore Exchange
in October 2004, and a new wholly owned subsidiary known as StarHub Online was formed in 2005 to provide broadband internet services.
On 12 January 2007, Qatar Telecom acquired a quarter of ST Telemedia's shares in StarHub.
On 1 May 2009, the Infocommunications Development Authority of Singapore announced that StarHub's wholly owned subsidiary, Nucleus Connect, was selected as the Operating Company (OpCo) to design, build and operate the active infrastructure of the Next Generation Nationwide Broadband Network.
On 14 July 2009, StarHub announced the retirement of long-standing chief executive Terry Clontz. Neil Montefiore, the former chief executive of the country's smallest telecommunications company M1 Limited, took over as chief executive on 1 January 2010. Terry Clontz remains as a non-executive director of StarHub.
On 1 August 2009, StarHub relocated its corporate office to StarHub Green building at Ubi from its previous office location at StarHub building at Cuppage.
On 27 May 2003, it became the first mobile operator in Singapore to commercially launch BlackBerry
, a hand-held wireless device providing e-mail, telephone, text messaging, web browsing and other wireless data access. Customers trials of 3G services began in November 2004, and was launched in April 2005.
In January 2005, StarHub announced that it would form an exclusive strategic partnership for i-mode
in Singapore with NTT DoCoMo
, a subsidiary of StarHub's major shareholder NTT. Customer trials started in October 2005, and the service was launched on 18 November.
On 15 July 2009, StarHub became the first mobile operator in the Asia Pacific region to commercially launch a HSPA+ service. Branded as MaxMobile Elite, StarHub's HSPA+ service offers download speeds up to 21 Mbit/s nationwide.
StarHub provides cable television services through its subsidiary StarHub Cable Vision, and it is the sole cable television operator in Singapore. Its hybrid fibre-coaxial
network reaches 99% of households in Singapore, with 539,000 households subscribing to its cable television services.
In November 2004, it announced the launch of digital cable services over its cable network, which added more channels and allowed greater consumer interactivity.
On 18 January 2007, StarHub became the first operator in Southeast Asia to offer a commercial high definition television service.
On 3 December 1999, a free surf plan was announced in conjunction with the rebranding of CyberWay, a first in Singapore's consumer internet industry. Customers could surf the internet for free via dial-up and pay only normal local telephone charges. Over 180,000 people signed up for the free surf plan in less than three months since it was announced.
StarHub provides broadband internet access on the same network it uses for cable television services using cable modems based on the DOCSIS
standard.
StarHub chairs the global Wireless Broadband Alliance and provides wireless broadband services at numerous locations throughout Singapore. In November 2004, it announced an agreement with Connexion by Boeing
which provide StarHub customers the ability to access the internet and digital content in flight.
On 28 December 2006, StarHub became the first operator in the world to commercially launch a 100 Mbit/s (100,000 kbit/s) residential broadband service. Known as MaxOnline Ultimate, it is one of three cable broadband services offered by StarHub, the other two being MaxOnline Express and MaxOnline Premium.
As of 31 December 2009, there were 400,000 subscribers to StarHub's MaxOnline services.
and voice services.
Data services include:
Internet protocol services include:
and Cox Communications
, was found to have blocked BitTorrent traffic, according to a survey conducted by the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems
using the Glasnost utility involving approximately 100,000 people from various geographic locations. The survey shows what appears to be a large reduction in BitTorrent speeds, compared to a control transfer rate set by a TCP/IP transfer.
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
. It is the second largest mobile
Mobile phone
A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...
operator.
Its top four direct shareholder
Shareholder
A shareholder or stockholder is an individual or institution that legally owns one or more shares of stock in a public or private corporation. Shareholders own the stock, but not the corporation itself ....
s are ST Telemedia
STT Communications
STT Communications is a wholly owned subsidiary of Singapore Technologies Telemedia , a private investment holding company part of Temasek Holdings. STT Communications has significant stakes in Global Crossing, U Mobile, SkyCable and StarHub....
, Qtel
Qtel
Qtel used to be the exclusive telecommunications provider in Qatar and is one of the largest public companies in Qatar with about 2000 employees. It was successfully launched on the Doha Securities Market in 1998 and listed on the London Stock Exchange in 1999, the Bahrain Stock Exchange in 2001...
, NTT Communications Corp
NTT Communications Corp
or NTT Com, is a subsidiary of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation - one of the world's largest telecommunications companies. NTT Com provides network management, security and solution services to consumers, corporations and governments....
and Temasek Holdings
Temasek Holdings
Temasek Holdings is an investment company owned by the government of Singapore. With an international staff of 380 people, it manages a portfolio of about S$193 billion at end of March 2011, focused primarily in Asia...
.
Subsidiaries
The StarHub group consists of several subsidiaries, which include:| Company | Type | Principal activities |
|---|---|---|
| StarHub Mobile | Subsidiary | GSM Global System for Mobile Communications GSM , is a standard set developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute to describe technologies for second generation digital cellular networks... and HSPA High Speed Packet Access High Speed Packet Access is an amalgamation of two mobile telephony protocols, High Speed Downlink Packet Access and High Speed Uplink Packet Access , that extends and improves the performance of existing WCDMA protocols... Mobile Network |
| StarHub TV | Subsidiary | Cable Television Cable television Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional... services |
| StarHub Internet | Subsidiary | Residential Broadband Service over DSL, Cable (DOCSIS) and FTTH |
| StarHub Voice | Subsidiary | Residential Telephone service (Voice) over Cable |
History
Singapore Power
Singapore Power is a company which provides electricity and gas transmission, distribution services, and market support services to more than a million customers in Singapore. It is the only electricity company in Singapore, and is also one of the largest corporations in Singapore...
, BT Group
BT Group
BT Group plc is a global telecommunications services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is one of the largest telecommunications services companies in the world and has operations in more than 170 countries. Through its BT Global Services division it is a major supplier of...
and Nippon Telegraph and Telephone
Nippon Telegraph and Telephone
, commonly known as NTT, is a Japanese telecommunications company headquartered in Tokyo, Japan. Ranked the 31st in Fortune Global 500, NTT is the largest telecommunications company in Asia, and the second-largest in the world in terms of revenue....
(NTT) as its major shareholders.
In January 1999, StarHub acquired internet service provider
Internet service provider
An Internet service provider is a company that provides access to the Internet. Access ISPs directly connect customers to the Internet using copper wires, wireless or fiber-optic connections. Hosting ISPs lease server space for smaller businesses and host other people servers...
CyberWay and it became a subsidiary within the StarHub group. It was renamed as StarHub Internet on 3 December 1999 in a move to integrate CyberWay into the StarHub brand.
In 2001, Singapore Power divested its shares in StarHub and sold its 25.5% stake to ST Telemedia for S$400 million. BT Group subsequently divested its 18% stake as a result of consolidation, after accumulating debt acquired during the bidding round for 3G licenses in the United Kingdom.
In 2002, the company merged with Singapore's sole cable television operator, Singapore Cable Vision. As a result of the merger, it acquired SCV's cable television as well as broadband internet access operations.
StarHub was publicly listed on the Singapore Exchange
Singapore Exchange
Singapore Exchange Limited is an investment holding company located in Singapore and providing different services related to securities and derivatives trading and others. SGX is a member of the World Federation of Exchanges and the Asian and Oceanian Stock Exchanges FederationSingapore Exchange...
in October 2004, and a new wholly owned subsidiary known as StarHub Online was formed in 2005 to provide broadband internet services.
On 12 January 2007, Qatar Telecom acquired a quarter of ST Telemedia's shares in StarHub.
On 1 May 2009, the Infocommunications Development Authority of Singapore announced that StarHub's wholly owned subsidiary, Nucleus Connect, was selected as the Operating Company (OpCo) to design, build and operate the active infrastructure of the Next Generation Nationwide Broadband Network.
On 14 July 2009, StarHub announced the retirement of long-standing chief executive Terry Clontz. Neil Montefiore, the former chief executive of the country's smallest telecommunications company M1 Limited, took over as chief executive on 1 January 2010. Terry Clontz remains as a non-executive director of StarHub.
On 1 August 2009, StarHub relocated its corporate office to StarHub Green building at Ubi from its previous office location at StarHub building at Cuppage.
Mobile services
StarHub provides mobile services through its subsidiary StarHub Mobile. Since its launch in April 2000, StarHub has been Singapore's fastest growing mobile operator. It has close to two million customers and is the second largest mobile network operator with close to 30% market share.On 27 May 2003, it became the first mobile operator in Singapore to commercially launch BlackBerry
BlackBerry
BlackBerry is a line of mobile email and smartphone devices developed and designed by Canadian company Research In Motion since 1999.BlackBerry devices are smartphones, designed to function as personal digital assistants, portable media players, internet browsers, gaming devices, and much more...
, a hand-held wireless device providing e-mail, telephone, text messaging, web browsing and other wireless data access. Customers trials of 3G services began in November 2004, and was launched in April 2005.
In January 2005, StarHub announced that it would form an exclusive strategic partnership for i-mode
I-mode
NTT DoCoMo's i-mode is a mobile internet service popular in Japan. Unlike Wireless Application Protocol, i-mode encompasses a wider variety of internet standards, including web access, e-mail and the packet-switched network that delivers the data...
in Singapore with NTT DoCoMo
NTT DoCoMo
is the predominant mobile phone operator in Japan. The name is officially an abbreviation of the phrase, "do communications over the mobile network", and is also from a compound word dokomo, meaning "everywhere" in Japanese. Docomo provides phone, video phone , i-mode , and mail services...
, a subsidiary of StarHub's major shareholder NTT. Customer trials started in October 2005, and the service was launched on 18 November.
On 15 July 2009, StarHub became the first mobile operator in the Asia Pacific region to commercially launch a HSPA+ service. Branded as MaxMobile Elite, StarHub's HSPA+ service offers download speeds up to 21 Mbit/s nationwide.
Cable television
Coaxial
In geometry, coaxial means that two or more forms share a common axis; it is the three-dimensional linear analogue of concentric.Coaxial cable, as a common example, has a wire conductor in the centre a circumferential outer conductor and an insulating medium called the dielectric separating...
network reaches 99% of households in Singapore, with 539,000 households subscribing to its cable television services.
In November 2004, it announced the launch of digital cable services over its cable network, which added more channels and allowed greater consumer interactivity.
On 18 January 2007, StarHub became the first operator in Southeast Asia to offer a commercial high definition television service.
Internet services
StarHub provides dial-up and broadband internet access through its subsidiaries StarHub Internet and StarHub Online respectively. StarHub Internet was formed after the acquisition of internet access provider CyberWay, while Starhub Online was formed after a merger with Singapore Cable Vision.On 3 December 1999, a free surf plan was announced in conjunction with the rebranding of CyberWay, a first in Singapore's consumer internet industry. Customers could surf the internet for free via dial-up and pay only normal local telephone charges. Over 180,000 people signed up for the free surf plan in less than three months since it was announced.
StarHub provides broadband internet access on the same network it uses for cable television services using cable modems based on the DOCSIS
DOCSIS
Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification is an international telecommunications standard that permits the addition of high-speed data transfer to an existing cable TV system...
standard.
StarHub chairs the global Wireless Broadband Alliance and provides wireless broadband services at numerous locations throughout Singapore. In November 2004, it announced an agreement with Connexion by Boeing
Connexion by Boeing
Connexion by Boeing was an in-flight online Internet connectivity service from Boeing. This service allowed travellers to access a high-speed internet connection while on board a plane in flight through a wired Ethernet or a wireless 802.11 Wi-Fi connection. Connexion by Boeing was formed as a...
which provide StarHub customers the ability to access the internet and digital content in flight.
On 28 December 2006, StarHub became the first operator in the world to commercially launch a 100 Mbit/s (100,000 kbit/s) residential broadband service. Known as MaxOnline Ultimate, it is one of three cable broadband services offered by StarHub, the other two being MaxOnline Express and MaxOnline Premium.
As of 31 December 2009, there were 400,000 subscribers to StarHub's MaxOnline services.
Fixed network services
StarHub’s fixed network, built since inception, extends more than 2000 km (1,242.7 mi) around Singapore and directly connects more than 800 commercial buildings. It provides a wide range of fixed network services, broadly categorised as data services and internet protocolInternet Protocol
The Internet Protocol is the principal communications protocol used for relaying datagrams across an internetwork using the Internet Protocol Suite...
and voice services.
Data services include:
- asynchronous transfer modeAsynchronous Transfer ModeAsynchronous Transfer Mode is a standard switching technique designed to unify telecommunication and computer networks. It uses asynchronous time-division multiplexing, and it encodes data into small, fixed-sized cells. This differs from approaches such as the Internet Protocol or Ethernet that...
service - domestic leased circuit
- facilities management
- frame relayFrame relayFrame Relay is a standardized wide area network technology that specifies the physical and logical link layers of digital telecommunications channels using a packet switching methodology...
- international private leased circuit
Internet protocol services include:
- corporate dialup and ADSL via access to DSLAMDigital subscriber line access multiplexerA digital subscriber line access multiplexer is a network device, located in the telephone exchanges of the telecommunications operators. It connects multiple customer digital subscriber line interfaces to a high-speed digital communications channel using multiplexing techniques...
s located in office buildings - dedicatedDedicated lineIn computer networks and telecommunications, a dedicated line is a communications cable or other facility dedicated to a specific application, in contrast with a shared resource such as the telephone network or the Internet....
leased lineLeased lineA leased line is a service contract between a provider and a customer, whereby the provider agrees to deliver a symmetric telecommunications line connecting two or more locations in exchange for a monthly rent . It is sometimes known as a 'Private Circuit' or 'Data Line' in the UK or as CDN in Italy...
s - global internet protocol network
- global virtual private networkVirtual private networkA virtual private network is a network that uses primarily public telecommunication infrastructure, such as the Internet, to provide remote offices or traveling users access to a central organizational network....
- metropolitan ethernetEthernetEthernet is a family of computer networking technologies for local area networks commercially introduced in 1980. Standardized in IEEE 802.3, Ethernet has largely replaced competing wired LAN technologies....
services - internet protocol transit/backboneBackboneBackbone may refer to:* Vertebral column, of a vertebrate organism* Backbone chain, in polymer chemistry, the framework of the molecule* Backbone Entertainment, a video game development company* Backbone network, the top level of a hierarchical network...
services - managed security services
- hosting services
- co-location service
Odex file sharing
In 2007, StarHub's commitment to customer privacy came into question as a result of Odex's actions against file sharing.BitTorrent traffic blocking
Between March 18 2008 to 27 January 2009, StarHub, along with ComcastComcast
Comcast Corporation is the largest cable operator, home Internet service provider, and fourth largest home telephone service provider in the United States, providing cable television, broadband Internet, and telephone service to both residential and commercial customers in 39 states and the...
and Cox Communications
Cox Communications
Cox Communications is a privately owned subsidiary of Cox Enterprises providing digital cable television, telecommunications and wireless services in the United States...
, was found to have blocked BitTorrent traffic, according to a survey conducted by the Max Planck Institute for Software Systems
Max Planck Institute for Software Systems
The Max Planck Institute for Software Systems is a computer science research institute co-located in Saarbrücken and Kaiserslautern, Germany. The institute is chartered to conduct basic research in all areas related to the design, analysis, modeling, implementation and evaluation of complex...
using the Glasnost utility involving approximately 100,000 people from various geographic locations. The survey shows what appears to be a large reduction in BitTorrent speeds, compared to a control transfer rate set by a TCP/IP transfer.