With $292M in funding, OMGTel could enter carrier market
Singapore firm OMGTel has secured S$400 million ($292 million) in funding commitments to obtain the country’s fourth mobile telephony license, according to local press reports.
The firm, which is a unit of wireless software solutions provider and system integrator Consistel, said it expects to raise a total of S$1 billion before Singapore’s spectrum auction, scheduled for the third quarter of 2016. Singapore has reserved a spectrum package for new entrants, consisting of 60 megahertz of mobile spectrum in the 900 MHz and 2.3 GHz bands, with a reserve price of S$35 million. Singapore’s current mobile operators are Singtel, StarHub and M1.
Last July, the country’s telecom regulatory Infocomm Development Authority articulated plans to court a fourth carrier in an effort to increase market competition.
“A new entrant is likely to bring about a wider variety of innovative services and more competitive offerings to the benefit of end-users,” the IDA said in a press release.
The organization points to examples in other countries to back their claims observing, “markets such as France and Spain experienced competitive mobile price plans and the introduction of new service offerings following the entry of a new mobile player.”
SK Telecom m-payment platform reaches 100,000 users
In other APAC news, SK Telecom said it reached 100,000 subscribers for its recently launched T-Pay mobile payment service.
T-Pay is based on a Bluetooth Low Energy hands-free payment platform and features a barcode payment feature. The new platform was commercially launched on March 15.
With the launch of this new mobile payment platform, SK Telecom enables two-way communication between BLE-enabled point-of-sale machines and customers’ smartphones. >After downloading the T-Pay app, subscribers can buy items simply by saying that they want to pay with T-Pay. The store POS and customer’s smartphone exchange customer and payment information via BLE communications. The cashier identifies the user through the user nickname or mobile phone number that appears on the store POS screen. The user can then complete the payment process by entering the registered password on the signature pad.
The T-Pay barcode payment feature is said ti generates one-time barcodes every three minutes to ensure a higher level of security in the payment process, and also encrypts all payment-related data.
The Asian telco said the T-Pay app is currently available via the Android Play and T-Store free of charge, and will be available via the Apple App Store within the first half of 2016.
