Starry Starry Hub
I’ve been reading alot about Starhub wanting to raise its prices. Basic subscription will go up by $4 and the Sports package would go up by $10. That’s an extra $14 I have to pay every month. Looks quite small huh…but multiply that by 12 and you get $168. Multiply that by 100 people and Starhub would be getting $16800 per year. But I don’t think only 100 people are subscribing to the same package as me. It should be a whole lot more than that.
But poor, old Starhub. They’ve been holding out on raising prices all these years and they have no choice but to do so now. I don’t see the reason though. They’ve been posting profits, so what’s the deal with that? How do they get away with raising prices when they are already making money? Are they monopolising their trade?
"How dare you say that!" says Starhub. They’re not the only ones in Singapore providing such services anymore. They’re NOT a monopoly! Subscribers are free to move to other scintillating companies such as MobTV and Singtel’s IPTV (coming soon) if they don’t like Starhub. So…nope Starhub is not a monopoly!
I’m very amused by Starhub’s PR exercises. They’ve been repeating these words on various newspapers. Its like a cut and paste job. Same words all the time. But some questions remain unanswered. Such as:
- Why did Starhub pay 4 times more than what ESPN did for the EPL rights?
- Why is Starhub increasing its subscription fee at a time when its actually making profits?
- Why does Starhub say its one of the most affordable cable companies around the region when the cable companies in our neighbouring countries offer cheaper prices. Even if they do offer around the same prices, they actually offer more channels? (Read today’s New Paper to read the comparisons)
- Why does Starhub insist that its not a monopoly and considers MobTV and Singtel’s IPTV as competitors? The former mostly offers local channels while the latter hasn’t even launched yet.
Currently there are no other alternatives to watch EPL, La Liga or Serie A unless we watch them on Starhub. So to me….and to all the subscribers, that constitutes a monopoly. We don’t have a choice. We have to subscribe to Starhub if we want to watch these leagues. And if Starhub wants to raise prices, we have no choice but to pay for it. That’s a monopoly. No way you can say that its not.
Maybe I should sign up with Malaysia’s Astro and hook it up at my parent’s house at JB. Then we’ll go watch the matches on weekends there.
Starhub is pure rubbish. I’m cancelling my subscription unless the hooha that the New Paper has been creating causes them to backtrack. This is no mild threat. I’ve already cancelled my cable modem subscription with them. I’m using M1’s broadband nowadays. Its cheaper and it still gets the job done. So I don’t mind cancelling the tv subscriptions as well. Luckily I didn’t sign a contract with them…