When potential fourth telco MyRepublic made their announcement on March 9, 2016, that it intends to spoil market by offering data-only plans from S$8 per month, Singtel, StarHub and M1 were sent scrambling in response to come up with better offers to upsize subscribers' mobile data plans.

Talk about being proven right.

Because this clearly shows all three telcos have become too predictable, to the extent, their foreseeable business moves were already being called out more than 10 months ago, by none other than MyRepublic's CEO, Malcolm Rodrigues (pictured above, top left).

In May 2015, Rodrigues gave an interview with e27 about MyRepublic's credible bid to be the newest entrant in Singapore's noncompetitive telecommunications industry.

What is most gratifying about his interview is re-reading the portion where he articulated the exact thoughts that was on the minds of many consumers in Singapore: What did we mortals do to deserve the sudden precipitous drop in data plan caps from 12GB to 2GB overnight?

And the realisation that when he called out the future moves of the three oligopolistic telcos raising data plans just to lock down subscribers, he was actually highly prophetic.

From e27:

As for what kind of response he expects from the current telcos regarding his plan, Rodrigues says, “I think they (the incumbents) are nervous, about the impact of a fourth operator, not just us but any fourth operator. Everything has just been so steady for a while.”

“I expect that if a fourth telco licence is announced, they won’t wait, they will start to lock people’s contracts. The good thing is that you will see 2GB data caps go to 5GB data caps,” Rodrigues adds.

“I bet you a day after the government says, ‘Here is the plan for a fourth telco’, data caps will go up in an attempt to diffuse the situation. I think what they don’t realise is that when they go from 12GB to 2GB, they will piss off so many people,” he predicts.

“I think the incumbents have become arrogant in their approach historically and I think they have burned bridges with a lot of their customers,” Rodrigues says, not one to mince his words, “We are confident that a fourth telco licence will be made available. We are confident that if the IDA has put the right conditions in place. We will bid and we will win,” he adds.

Bearing in mind that shortly before MyRepublic proclaiming their intention to spoil market with S$8-a-month mobile data plans, the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) made an announcement on Feb. 19, 2016, that they were finally allowing a fourth telco into Singapore’s three-cornered oligopolistic market.

A week prior to IDA's announcement, on Feb. 12, Singtel CEO Chua Sock Koong said that she feared a new telco entrant may use lower prices to attract customers as its network reach is not as wide as incumbent telcos and this lowering of prices is not good for the industry.

Boom.

Related articles:

MyRepublic CEO: All 3 telcos didn’t realise cutting data plans from 12GB to 2GB pissed off so many people

MyRepublic intends to spoil market by offering data-only plans from $8 per month

Singtel CEO fears competition will be focused on price with 4th telco entrant; Internet responds

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