Review of Singapore’s 4th telco TPG LTE network

Review of Singapore’s 4th telco TPG Trial network

6 Jan 2019

TPG begins it’s trial of it’s LTE network starting from Woodlands users. Pre registered users collected their SIM cards and are offered a 12 months trial. The selected users will be given 2 GB per day of data at 4G speeds and it will be throttled to 1 Mbps after the first 2 GB is consumed. The 4G speed will be reset after midnight. Effectively, the plan simply give users a 30 x 2GB or 60 GB of data per month with unlimited 1 Mbps connection throughout the day. It also include 20 call minutes to landlines and 20 SMS. There is unlimited calls to local mobile lines.

As TPG is a 4G network, voice calls will only be available in VoLTE mode. Newer phone models will support this feature.

We will be conducting tests at various (ongoing) in the next couple of days. So stay tuned to this page.

Before you begin, you will need to manually assign a APN to the TPG SIM.

The parameters to used are :

APN name : tpg
APN : tpg

 If your smartphone supports VoLTE, you will get a SMS notification which looks like this :

[nextpage title=”Signal Strength and Speedtest”]

Signal strength of TPG

TPG seems to be using LTE BAND 40, TDD 2300MHz as shown in the test. From what we understand, it also operates under BAND 8, 900 MHz.

Here is a screen shot of the TPG signal strength tested in Woodlands Ave 9. The Huawei Nova 3i is used with 2 SIM, one from TPG and the other is a Zero1.

Here is a speedtest result conducted on the SIM.

Updated : Speed above ground from Woodlands down to Bukit Batok are generally very stable and signal is strong. Here are some speed test results. TPG seems to have the strongest signal in the WESTERN part of Singapore above ground. North Eastern is poorly covered unless you are switched to Band 40 which is probably found indoors.

[nextpage title=”Coverage”]

Coverage

So far street level signal is fine. Basement and lifts get a bar signal or no signal at all.

Underground MRT signal is too weak to even complete a run on Speedtest.

A hypermart which is situated at basement level has it signal connected to Band 40. We can see that MyRepublic signal is stronger as it runs on the established Starhub network.

[nextpage title=”Voice calls”]

VoLTE

On Xiaomi phones, you can enable VoLTE using this command, just key in a the dial pad and dial *#*#86583#*#*

All three phones Huawei Nova 3, Xiaomi Mimax 2 and Samsung Galaxy Note 8 supports VoLTE.

Although VoLTE is enabled, tester is unable to make any voice calls. Making calls to the TPG numbers from other telco or fixed line failed too.

Update: TPG to TPG calls work but any outgoing or incoming calls from other telcos don’t. TPG to TPG voice calls work on Huawei Nova 3i and Xiaomi MiMax2., Redmi 5 plus. Tester can’t get it to work on the Samsung Galaxy Note 8 and Oppo R17Pro.

Here are a list of phone models that work with TPG’s VoLTE.

Officially supported

Huawei Nova 3i
Samsung S9 / S9+
Honor 10 Lite

Others that work

Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus
Xiaomi MiMax 2
Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 Qualcomm (regional setting to Malaysia)
Xiaomi Redmi Note 5
Xiaomi Mi A1 (Do not upgrade to Android PIE)
Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite (Do not upgrade to Android PIE)
Xiaomi Pocophone F1
Samsung A7
Samsung S9+ (With Jan 2019 firmware non telco set, update 26/1/2019)
ASUS Zenfone 4
One Plus 6T (with modifications – see FB group user posting
Redmi Note 7 (updated 3rd Feb 2019)

For more updates, please visit our telco Facebook grp.

*Most of the XIaomi/Redmi smartphones with Snapdragon should work after entering code *#*#86583#*#* , you should receive a SMS notification that your phone can now use TPG’s VoLTE Voice to make voice calls.

The following devices do not work with VoLTE as yet.

Oppo R17 Pro
Pixel 3 / 3 XL
Samsung S9
Apple iPhone (all series)
Huawei Mate 10
Huawei Mate 9
LG G7+ ThinQ

Update on 8 Jan 2018: Voice calls to Fixed Line e.g. banks work but calling home fixed line doesn’t. Calling to mobile numbers do not work at this moment. e.g 62255225 (CITIBANK), 65427788 (Weather Forecast).. Calling to MyRepublic fixed line works.

Update on 26/1/2019 : Voice calls and SMS to and from M1 networks (except Fibre fixed line) works with TPG. To date, TPG voice calls can receive calls or make calls to 

1. Starhub/MyRep/VivoBee lines
2. M1/circlelife/pldt mobile lines

Singtel/zero1/zeromobile numbers are still unreachable when called using TPG VoLTE (except Singtel fixed line 6 series numbers).

Update on 28 Jan 2019

Voice calls to and from TPG to Singtel/Zero1 works. SMS fails. Calls to Fixed line 6 series number of M1 Fibre broadband still couldn’t work.

[nextpage title=”What happens after 2GB data is exceeded”]

Speedtest seems to be unaffected with speeds running up to 40 or even 50 Mbps. If you do video streaming using youtube, you will noticed that you can’t get a smooth stream at 720p as the 1 Mbps kicks in after you consumed the first 2 GB of the day.

Reducing the resolution to 480p solves the problem. After midnight, you will again be allocated 2 GB of high speed access.

[nextpage title=”Conclusion”]

So far, I am quite please with the performance of TPG network when it is used above ground. As they have indicated, coverage is still not ready for MRT, tunnels or indoor basement. Things should improve over time.

TPG should also have a better SIM allocation scheme. Till today, they still allow a person to register 4 TPG trial SIMs. This has resulted in mass traffic swaming their online registration system and long queues at collection centres. There is also not much technical support as to when VoLTE can work on their handsets. 

Update 26/1/2019 : It seems that Band 40 is becoming more common in public areas. The speed of this TDD Band 40 2300 MHz can easily reach 100 Mbps as compared to  FDD Band 8 900MHz

Update 29/9/2019 : iPhone with ios 13.1.1 can make voice calls over LTE (VoLTE)

https://en.ocworkbench.com/tpg-volte-is-finally-supported-on-iphone-for-making-voice-calls-over-lte/

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