How Bad is SingTel ? Very Very Poor Indeed.

Watching Starhub coverage of Euro 2012 on my cable TV and also tested that Starhub delivery of same via web browsers on mobile devices like iPhone and iPad. Everything works like a dream. No excuses about Flash constraints, set-top reboots, etc.

Excellent Starhub. Grade A+. "In tune with customer needs".

Euro 2012 on iPad via Starhub - very smooth

Contrast this with SingTel delivery of EPL and CL the past 2 seasons. Long time readers of this blog will remember my bitter complaints about SingTel streaming lags and regular breakdown in broadcast. Complained till the cows come home via email, phone, public shaming (Facebook, blog) and yet completely ignored by SingTel. 2 years later it is obvious that problems have not been adequately addressed eg see here. Too many people viewing and switching channels causing system freezes. What crap excuse.

My EPL/CL delivery from SingTel comes via their mio Stadium (=via internet) service. Consider how important the Apple iOS platform has grown in the last few years. Any company in tune with the market place would by now have adapted to deliver on the most popular platform around. And yet, try watching EPL on mio Stadium in iOS and you still get a blank white space where the screen is supposed to show up :=

mio Stadium on iOS - blank white space

And here's what you get when you try to watch match clips on SingTel's BPL App (designed for Apple iOS and yet has never ever worked from day 1 over 2 years ago). I have also never undestood why the App requires WiFi to be turned off and to run on 3G only? Is that so that users then chalk up 3G usage which is chargeable? If so, that is so low class and cheap of SingTel. (Anyway, the App still doesn't work if you turn off WiFi).

SingTel BPL App - match clips don't work on iOS

Crap Singtel. Grade F-. "Don't know, don't want to know, don't care".

Much like another Singapore Govt linked company - SMRT. Save and stinge on maintenance, fail to keep up to date with changes (in population and ridership) in their marketplace, emphasis on upfront short term delivery at expense of longer term health. Now a laughing stock of the world. Ditto PUB and flooding.

Same for PAP Government. Bring in FTs to boost short term output at expense of long term decline in quality of life in country. Clueless what low regard the common folk has for them. Lost touch with the common ground. I reckon watershed Singapore 2016 elections at the rate the PAP is going.

Stopped complaining about SingTel here not because problems solved but because I give up on them. Seeing how well everything works on Starhub tonight has just reminded me of how it should be.