StarHub will be pulling the plug on its cable services by June 30 next year, the telco said yesterday.

To help cable customers make the switch to fibre, it is offering discounted subscriptions and freebies such as wireless routers and additional TV channels, among other things.

Customers will receive more information through letters, phone calls and SMSes.

StarHub said its technical experts will take care of the end-to-end installation and activation of fibre services, which include providing home networking advice like ideal wireless router placement and fibre TV cabling solutions. No additional costs will be incurred for subscribing to fibre services, it added.

Fibre services, such as fibre broadband and fibre TV, use fibre optic cables to send data, while cable services use a combination of fibre and coaxial cables.

In response to queries from The Straits Times, StarHub vice-president of segment and marketing Donovan Kik said that due to competitive reasons, he could only reveal that "a significant number of our customers are already enjoying our fibre services".

As of June 30 this year, StarHub had a total of 438,000 pay-TV customers and 471,000 broadband customers, the two services which will be impacted by the switch to fibre.

What to expect

Q When will StarHub stop providing cable services? A June 30 next year. StarHub will continue to deliver its television, broadband and digital voice services over the Nationwide Broadband Network. Q How will StarHub's cable customers be affected when the telco stops its cable services? A Customers still on cable will not be able to access cable television, broadband and home phone services. StarHub advises its cable customers to switch to fibre before June 30 to avoid service disruption. It will send them letters before June 30 to help them move to fibre. Q What is needed to set up fibre service? A Customers need a termination point (TP) installed in their homes. Those without a TP can check if their homes are ready for fibre services by entering their postal code at http://www.netlinktrust.com/ If the customer's home is ready for fibre, StarHub technicians will install and activate fibre services. Charges will be waived for the installation of the first TP and the optical network terminal for StarHub customers. A customer whose home is not fibre-ready should e-mail StarHub through its website on what to do. Similarly, the first TP and the optical network terminal will be installed for free for StarHub customers.

HELPING CUSTOMERS UPGRADE We are assisting our existing cable customers to upgrade to fibre connectivity so that no one will be left behind in this technology upgrade. MR DONOVAN KIK vice-president of segment and marketing

"We are assisting our existing cable customers to upgrade to fibre connectivity so that no one will be left behind in this technology upgrade," he said.

Mr Kik also said that all households, whether public or private homes, will be able to tap into the fibre broadband infrastructure by Net-Link Trust.

"We constantly refresh our service offerings to ensure they are aligned with what our customers desire, including... faster internet surfing speeds as well as higher quality pay TV services," he said.

"This way, they would also be well prepared to adopt new, transformative digital services such as in Telehealth, asset monitoring and remote learning."

Telehealth uses information communications technology to support patient care, education and public health.

Singtel, the other major Internet service provider, completed its shift to fibre-based networks in April.

Fibre broadband was first available here in 2010. It allowed consumers and businesses to surf the Internet at speeds of up to 1Gbps, which was 10 times faster than the fastest cable connection available at that time.