Amid online furore based on the belief that SingTel would be charging customers for using Internet services such as Whatsapp and Skype, the telco has come out to clarify the matter.

In a Facebook post at about 6pm, SingTel said that there was "some misunderstanding" and assured customers that it did not plan to charge them separately for using services like Whatsapp.

Netizens had reacted negatively to reports earlier this week that SingTel's chief executive Chua Sock Koong had urged regulators to allow telcos to charge companies that provided services like Whatsapp and Skype for using the operators' networks. She was speaking in Barcelona at the Mobile World Congress, the world's biggest mobile trade fair.

A SingTel spokesman also told The Straits Times that a Whatsapp Pass chargeable add-on service it has for postpaid customers was optional and targeted at users who do not have data plans, such as those on voice and text messaging plans.

Some netizens had thought that SingTel was already charging customers for using Whatsapp with the Whatsapp Pass.