Collapse of M1-Simba deal reveals chinks in Singapore’s cursed telco consolidation dream

[SINGAPORE] Everything in Singapore feels like it is getting more expensive, from hawker meals and groceries to public transport and utility bills. But the cost of one basic necessity has bucked that trend: mobile phone plans.

You might remember the bad old days when a basic mobile phone plan cost upwards of S$40 a month for a measly two gigabytes of data. Today, you can easily find plans for under S$10 offering a hundred times that amount.

Singapore’s push to liberalise the telecommunications sector and open the market to a fourth operator – now more than a decade on – was meant to shake up the incumbents and lower consumer prices. It worked perfectly.