After reform initiatives, the Singaporean telecommunication industry became streamlined and largely directed by the government, which viewed such policy as critical in shaping societal preferences and in directing the state's economy. Being able to provide adequate telecommunications services is also critical when approached from the perspective that Singapore's legitimacy as a state rests on its capability to deliver a high standard of living to its citizens. Hence, beginning in the 1970s, the state pursued a three-phase strategy oriented towards developing world-class telecommunications infrastructure capable of high-quality telecommunications services. By the late 1980s, the third phase commenced and it focused on bolstering Singapore's international role as well as the IT 2000, which was an ambitious plan to encourage new multimedia services, which is articulated in the promotion of Singapore as "an intelligent island". Failure of the joint venture was attributed to a saturated mobile market and Virgin Mobile's positioning as a "premium" brand. As for
internet facilities, as of 2009, there are four major
Internet service providers (ISPs) in Singapore. By February 2009, there were more than 4.8 million
broadband users in Singapore. However, due to the small market and possible market collusion, there have been rising concerns that various ISPs' telecommunication infrastructures being highly under-utilised. In July 2015, Liberty Wireless signed an agreement with M1 Limited that allowed it to tap on M1's mobile network, thus becoming the first MVNO, operating as Circles Asia, in Singapore to offer a full service mobile network experience. On 14 December 2016,
TPG, an Australian ISP, won the bid to be Singapore's fourth telecommunications company at S$105 million. By 2019, due to the introduction of TPG and 9 MVNO entrants to the market, thus turning the market to be more competitive, the price of mobile plans had fallen. As of January 2018, there are four
cellular phone operators in Singapore serving more than 6.4 million cellular phones. In August 2025, M1 telco business was acquired by Simba, and MyRepublic was acquired by StarHub. Thus, resulting in three telco operators in Singapore, namely Singtel, Simba and Starhub. ==Telephones==