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Singapore: Lessons for the USA about 100% Broadband

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Steven S. Ross
Corporate Editor
Broadband Properties

Potential fiber-to-the-home investors worried about content and services that might be available to “fill the pipes” might do well to take a look at Singapore. All Singapore households have broadband interconnectivity, and 60 percent of that connectivity will be FTTH by next year. Information technology accounts for a large and increasing proportion of Singapore’s economy and job growth – almost 10 percent of all households depend on it for direct income.

All households and businesses are scheduled to be passed by fiber by 2012. It’s part of Singapore’s Intelligent Nation 2015 (IN2015) master-plan, now in its third year.

Video: Lui Tuck Yew, acting minister for information, details the Singapore Media Fusion Plan.

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Under IN20015 and a concurrent “Singapore Media fusion Plan,” Singapore’s Infocomm Development Authority and Media Development Authority have:

* Attracted private telecom and cable operators to a public-private partnership that is building the FTTH network.
* Expanded free (to residents and travelers) 1 Mbps wireless access through 7,500 hotspots. There are 1.3 million subscribers, in a country of less than 5 million people.
* Created an Infocomm Leadership and Development Program (iLEAD) to educate a pool of infocomm professionals through local and overseas employment, internships and in-service specialized courses. There’s also iTAP, which helps new grads and existing infocomm professionals find employment. The two programs are budgeted at about US $14 million (for iLEAD) and US $42 million (for iTAP). The iLEAD initiative alone is expected to serve about 1,000 people.
* Developed an international arm for IDA that helps other countries develop broadband services – and creates an open door for Singapore’s manufacturers, developers and other infocomm experts.
* Started “Next Gen Innovation Centers” where international companies can come to test broadband products, services and business models in Singapore.
* Started many new R&D centers for interactive and digital media.

Is it working? Yes. The government’s own investments seem tiny compared to the benefits, but they were enough to attract a great deal of private-sector interest.

Singapore’s telecom-related industry grew crisply last year at 12.4 percent, to S$58.1 billion (more than $40 billion, in US dollars). That’s about US $20,000 per Singapore household. The growth rate slowed from 2006 (19.9 percent) and 2007 (13.8 percent), and it will be lower still in 2009. But the sector’s performance remains impressive considering a worldwide economic downturn. IDA reports that Singapore had 139,000 employed information technology professionals at the end of 2008, up 6.6 percent from 2007.

When it comes to broadband, we’re now a follower, not a leader, at least for now. It seems clear that as FTTH expands in North America, broadband products and services developed in Asia will help fill the pipes – until more Americans are exposed to the benefits of broadband and get their own creative juices flowing.


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