Government to spend S$1b on next generation broadband

7 April 2008
Government to spend S$1b on next generation broadband
By Dominique Loh, Channel NewsAsia

SINGAPORE: The government has set aside up to S$250 million as a
grant to the winning bidder that will sell and direct bandwidth for
the country's new broadband network.

To meet the growing demand for online services in Singapore, the
Infocomm Development Authority (IDA) is inviting companies to submit
a proposal to design, build and operate the active infrastructure for
the next generation of broadband network.

This was announced on Monday when a second tender was called to
develop the network, which will be rolled out islandwide by 2015.

The IDA launched the Request For Proposal (RFP) and this comes under
the second phase of the Next Generation National Broadband Network
(Next Gen NBN) project.

It had earlier called for a separate tender in December 2007 to lay
telecom cables for the network. The winner of this ongoing first
tender will receive public funds of up to S$750 million.

So the two tenders together will bring public spending to as much as
S$1 billion for the project.

In the latest tender, the chosen company will be known as the
Operating Company (OpCo) and will run the telecommunication switches
in the network.

There are 11 companies that have pre-qualified for the OpCo RFP to
perform the required functions. They include local and foreign
players.

The OpCo will be chosen by the first quarter of 2009. Under the
selection criteria, the winning bidder must be able to attract at
least 330,000 residential and 80,000 non-residential subscribers.

The IDA said the selected OpCo must meet at least half of these key
targets.

It noted that the broadband penetration in Singapore reached nearly
80 per cent in February this year, but this is set to go up. However,
the current infrastructure will not be able to meet this demand.

So it is planning the `Next Generation National Broadband Network',
which aims to connect more than half of businesses and homes in
Singapore to a national broadband network capable of speeds around
1,000 megabits a second by 2012. This can be scaled up to one gigabit
per second and more.

The winner of the first tender or network company bid will be
announced in the third quarter of 2008, and the winner of the
operating company contest in the first quarter of 2009.

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