14 December 1999, Singapore -- StarHub’s free surf plan has met with overwhelming response. As of Sunday, 12 December 1999, 100,000 people have already signed up for StarHub’s free surf plan. This means that StarHub Internet has already achieved 50% of its targeted number of registrants for the first year of operation in just nine days after the launch of its free surf plan. As the starter kit can be utilized by multiple users, the actual number of people on the free surf plan is likely to be higher than the number of registrations received to date.
Mr Peter Kaliaropoulos said, "We are delighted with the response. This goes to show that Singapore was ready and waiting for a revolutionary offer like this. StarHub is pleased to be the first company to bring radical change to the Internet industry and introduce free surf to Singapore. We believe that with this plan, we are giving true benefits to our customers because we are focussed on them. We are glad that because of our action, we have forced the other service providers to follow our lead and adopt alternative business models. The true beneficiaries of all these are the consumers, whom I’m sure recognise the value that StarHub brought to the market by being the catalyst of change. They can be assured that StarHub will continually look at challenging the norm and introducing bold, innovative initiatives that will surprise our customers."
Powered by world class business partners, Sun Microsystems and CISCO Systems, the free surf plan sits on a brand new and separate Internet infrastructure from the existing system for StarHub Internet’s subscribers. Sun Microsystems provides the infrastructure for the new system which has the capacity to handle high volume Internet usage log-ins. CISCO System’s routers provide the necessary diversion and routing to ensure that the new free surf Internet network can support the large number of incoming registrations.
The free surf infrastructure is built from day one to accommodate the targeted number of subscribers. With such best-of-breed partners behind the infrastructure, StarHub’s free surf users can be assured of the quality of the network and the service. However, in anticipation of the good market response, StarHub is already working closely with its partners to scale the infrastructure to meet the exacting demands of an increased consumer base over time.
Mr Kaliaropoulos further added, "To further enhance users’ web experience, StarHub believes that consumer loyalty on the Net is driven by the quality of a website''s content. Our partner, Yahoo!, the world's leading global Internet media company and navigational guide, has developed the winning formula for attracting consumers'' repeated visits to their site and creating valuable stickiness. By combining Yahoo! Singapore''s content and our truly revolutionary free surfing plan which is available to everyone in Singapore today, we believe that StarHub is clearly leading the way in the Internet market today."
