Get Ahead with 5G and Singtel

Home to 4.5 billion people, Asia is the world’s most populous continent and an attractive market for foreign businesses looking to tap into large consumer markets. But meeting customer expectations in this heterogeneous region is no easy feat. Entering Asia without the right ICT vendor and right ICT solutions will make it challenging to replicate your success abroad. Singtel and 5G can help.

If there’s one thing that 2020 forced us to accept, it’s that the move to a digital landscape is now inevitable. Businesses transitioned to the digital realm at lightspeed and the digital world now matters just as much as the physical world. As we look ahead, businesses can no longer afford to play it safe. What will separate the good companies from the great companies will be the courage to evolve. There’s an extraordinary opportunity for businesses to take charge of this profound global reset moment and embrace transformative technology

Enter 5G - an exponentially more powerful network that not only accommodates the need for a rise in bandwidth with lightning processing speeds but also opens up an entirely new world of AR, VR and IoT possibilities.

May 2021 marked the launch of Singtel’s 5G Standalone (SA) network, the first of such networks in Singapore. With twice the responsiveness, it offered 30% faster uploads and strengthened authentication and encryption capabilities.  This opened up many doors of opportunity for revolutionary applications, including self-driving cars, real-time immersive entertainment, and massive IoT networks.

The successful launch of 5G SA followed Singtel’s release of GENIE just a month prior. GENIE was the world’s first portable 5G platform to make it possible for enterprises to trial and experience 5G use cases first-hand on their premises.

Since these early days, continuous innovation and collaboration have been the lifeblood of Singtel’s ongoing 5G success story. By constantly pushing the envelope, Singtel has helped businesses achieve global firsts by spearheading world-class partnerships and ecosystems.

Singtel was the first to launch a public MEC 5G solution

Singtel’s unique multi-access edge computing (MEC) architecture was launched in February 2022, offering an unrivalled solution in stark contrast to the network infrastructure of 5G’s predecessors. It brought data closer to end-users by placing it at the network’s edge rather than in distant data storage centres. Supported by multiple cloud providers, including Microsoft Azure and AWS, Singtel’s MEC infrastructure is capable of reducing latency time to less than ten milliseconds. This powered several 5G applications such as autonomous guided vehicles, drones, robots, and virtual, augmented and mixed reality solutions.

Singtel has served as a testbed for innovation

Singtel has established several partnerships that have led to groundbreaking solutions. The 5G Garage, launched in 2020, was a first-of-its-kind partnership with Ericsson and Singapore Polytechnic, a post-secondary educational institute. It provided a live testing facility, training centre and ideation lab for businesses to run 5G test pilots. Companies in Singapore were able to tap into libraries of existing 5G use cases and tweak them to fit their solution needs.

Another notable partnership, the 5G@Sentosa programme, was a testbed for public sector innovation by the Singapore government. Sentosa is one of the region's most popular tourist destinations, and Singtel was selected by the Government Technology Agency (GovTech) to work with Sentosa Development Corporation (SDC) to test how 5G can benefit the public sector. By tapping into Singtel’s 5G networks, security teams at Sentosa could navigate drones linked to remote high-quality video streams. This activity unveiled high potential opportunities for autonomous vehicles and robotics, which will minimise the risk of human errors and accidents during building site inspections.

The engagement of industry stakeholders and educational institutions forms part of Singtel’s long-term strategy of building sustainable talent pipelines to support businesses well into the future.

Singtel pioneers an all-in-one platform to accelerate 5G adoption

Singtel’s latest initiative, Singtel Paragon is the industry’s first all-in-one platform for 5G network, edge computing and services orchestration. It was conceived to help enterprises reduce complexity, lower the barriers to entry and reduce the time needed to adopt 5G.  With Singtel Paragon, businesses of all shapes and sizes are better equipped to create network slices on-demand, deploy mission-critical 5G applications on Singtel’s multi-access edge compute (MEC), and access a robust ecosystem of partner applications - all with the click of a button.

While greater connectivity and faster speeds are at the heart of 5G, it’s the opportunity of having a full-fledged IoT ecosystem that keeps Singtels’ engineers awake at night.

5G’s increased capacity and minimal lag make it possible to create smart versions of everyday devices, and Singtel is eager to help forward-thinking companies be the first mover with smart-enabled products. This is important because the GSM Association estimates that the number of IoT connections will grow to 25.2 billion by 2025, where Asia Pacific is forecasted to become the largest global IoT region in terms of connections and revenue.¹

The potential for new augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) experiences that support hybrid working also paves the way for businesses to save on office rental and minimise time-consuming commutes, thereby accelerating employee productivity. This sets the stage for governments to repurpose urban buildings for much-needed sustainability initiatives such as housing, agriculture, and urban forestry.

5G’s ability to facilitate superfast communications also means large-scale data collection can become a reality. This will allow age-old industries such as manufacturing, agriculture, healthcare, education and transportation to pivot.

The bottom line is that 5G could not have come at a better time. 5G is the technology that makes it possible to embrace industrial 4.0 and unlock a new world of possibilities. However, while it’s clear that a willingness to adapt to 5G is a business imperative, it’s important to remember that not all 5G providers are made equal. For all the potential that 5G holds, choosing the right 5G solutions partner is a critical first step that determines if you can realise your vision.

Singtel is committed to setting the pace for connecting business in Asia. When you partner with Singtel, your business will be powered by…

The right design and solution to anticipate future industry changes and custom-build networks to keep you ahead of the curve;

The right infrastructure, complete with a full suite of connectivity that meets all your business needs; and

The right operations, people, and skills to provide robust service lifecycle management and on-the-ground support.

We’re ready to help you succeed in the 5G era. Let’s talk.

¹ GSMA, New GSMA study: Operators Must Look Beyond Connectivity to Increase Share of $1.1 Trillion IoT Revenue Opportunity, 2018