Singapore government has given a blessing on a new fiber to the home broadband network that will compete with current incumbents SingTel and StarHub. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong according to The Strait Times, announced the government intentions during his Budget presentation and promised to reveal more details next week. Some private corporations are going to be involved in this project that could cost as much as $1.2 billion. Strangely, Sing-Tel has a fiber optic network backbone, but it still uses DSL to deliver last mile services.
4 comments so far
4:18 AM PT
It’s not strange really that DSL is the last mile and that there is a fiber backbone. It’s a matter of network progression. The last mile is always expensive - getting into people’s homes and such. It’s also a tremendous investment, depreciating the copper that “isn’t broke” for the ‘gamble’ that end users will embrace higher speeds.
Good for Singapore - no doubt that they want to get into the ‘fiber club’ - a crude parallel is like the nuclear arms race. You have to have it to have credibility and respect. Oh, the delivery of high-speed content also helps.
8:47 AM PT
no i have often wondered why singtel which is so advanced in many ways did not upgrade to fiber already, given the size and the denisty of the country. i have heard folks from that company talk about ftth for a while.
1:10 AM PT
I hope this gives a real wake up call to Singtel and Starhub who are both very well placed to deliver a FTTH service. This will continue the infrastructure needs of Singapore to be upgraded and bring the citizens of Singapore the benefits of true broadband, now The content is required to get the commercial balance correct.
Stepehn Fostter Treasurer FTTTH Council Asia Pacific (link)
2:05 AM PT
This is high time… lack of competition in the communications sector has resulted in very little choices for consumers. There is only 1 DSL company and 1 Cable Broadband company in Singapore. The lack of super high speed communications has caused Singapore to lag behind badly. The current Singapore ONE network is so 1995! Time to go Broadband 2.0. The other issue would be islandwide WIFI. But I think that would require a great effort to pull through because of Singapore’s current investment in 3G.
Justin Lee (link)
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