SINGAPORE - StarHub is throwing in a free cable broadband subscription for those who buy its 500Mbps fibre plan, in a bid to address Wi-Fi slowdowns within the home.

For $69.90 a month, subscribers of its 500Mbps fibre broadband plan will get a free 100Mbps cable broadband line from Saturday.

Customers will get two routers - one for fibre and the other for cable access. The former is typically installed in the living room, where the national fibre broadband network point sits in the home. The cable network router can be installed anywhere as StarHub's round, angled cable point can be found in every room in most homes here.

StarHub believes the spare cable network will address the problem of slowdowns when distributing fibre connections using Wi-Fi. By the time Wi-Fi signals pass through a few walls to reach the farthest bedroom or study, surfing speed would have dropped 10 times. The spare link is also a form of redundancy in the event of an outage.

"Consistent wireless broadband connectivity throughout the home is essential for customers who increasingly rely on Internet-enabled smart devices, including laptops, smartphones, tablets (and) smart TVs," said Ms Lin Shu Fen, head of StarHub's Entertainment and SmartLife unit.

Some 550,000 fibre broadband plans that allow surfing at up to 1Gbps - 10 times the top speed of a cable connection - have been sold here since the fibre network's launch in September 2010. Customers adamant about wanting to stream high-definition movies or play online games have little choice but to wire up their dwelling with ethernet cables. The downside is ugly surface trunking.