Singtel remodels old payphone booths into Unboxed Lite stations with free 5G-powered Wi-Fi

Need Wi-Fi in a pinch? Or a quick three-minute call? Perhaps you'd like to get a top-up for your Singtel prepaid cards? Singtel has all of that covered - with air-conditioning, no less - at their latest creation, Unboxed Lite .

The Unboxed Lite is a payphone booth remodelled with 5G connectivity. It offers free 5G-powered Wi-Fi to just about anyone with a smartphone; you don't need to be subscribed to a Singtel service for free Wi-Fi inside Unboxed Lite, and neither do you need a 5G-ready smartphone to use the free Wi-Fi.

Because of its connectivity, the booths are capable of 4K resolution video streaming.

According to Singtel, the Wi-Fi inside Unboxed Lite is powered by a combination of 5G bands that Singtel uses - namely, the 2,100MHz, 3.5GHz , and the 28GHz frequencies.

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Currently, the Unboxed Lite booths are found outside of Tong Building (the real estate that houses Rolex's Singapore Service Centre located between Lucky Plaza and Paragon).

Unboxed Lite also offers free three-minute outgoing phone calls (something that payphones of the old charged a couple of cents for).

The booths also double as an unmanned retail storefront for Singtel, where Singtel customers can use Unboxed Lite to pay bills, purchase top-ups, get new subscriptions with Singtel Mobile, Singtel Fibre Broadband, and Singtel TV, and receive instant SIM card replacements via its sassy, virtual AI retail assistant.

Unlike the original Unboxed pop-up store that's currently located next to the fountain at Comcentre, Unboxed Lite doesn't have a POPStation for instant purchase collection of new handsets, nor does it have a device demo area.

“Unboxed Lite 5G experience zones will allow more consumers to try out Singtel 5G and understand how super-fast speeds and quick response times can elevate their mobile data experience. With 5G set to go mainstream with more devices and applications available in the coming months, we will launch Unboxed Lite experience zones progressively across the island to bring richer experiences enabled by 5G, AR and VR closer to the consumers,” said Ms Gan Siok Hoon, Managing Director of Sales and Marketing, Consumer Singapore, Singtel.

In our conversations with Singtel, we understand that more Unboxed Lite booths will appear progressively across the island, although the exact locations and timeline were not specified. The booths' touchable surfaces are also coated in anti-microbial solution and disinfected regularly, in consideration of our new normal.

More information about Unboxed and Unboxed Lite are available via Singtel's official website .

This article was first published in Hardware Zone.