SINGAPORE (MarketWatch) -- Singapore Telecommunications Ltd. (Z74.SG) said it has submitted a bid for rights to broadcast English Premier League matches, a move that confirms it will compete against the existing EPL broadcaster, StarHub Ltd. (Z81.SG), in the local cable TV market.

The city-state's Media Development Authority has given approval for SingTel to test a cable TV service and the company has also applied to the broadcasting regulator for a commercial pay TV license, SingTel said in a statement Tuesday.

"Our intention is to offer Pay TV services to deliver high definition content over SingTel's telecommunications network," said SingTel, which is 56%-owned by Singapore government investment company Temasek Holdings Pte Ltd.

SingTel, Southeast Asia's largest telephone company by market capitalization, still gets over three quarters of its annual earnings from Singapore despite a multibillion dollar expansion into Australia and into Asia's mobile telephone markets.

The move into Singapore's pay TV market, which will likely utilize Internet Protocol technology, is an attempt by the government-owned company to protect its cash cow business from predation by competitors StarHub and MobileOne Ltd. (M31.SG)

StarHub, which offers mobile telephone, cable TV, Internet and fixed-line telephone services, has gained market share by giving consumers a discount when they buy more than one of its services.

The EPL bid is for the right to broadcast matches from August 2007 to May 2010.