COMMENT
Compiled at my Singapore hotel upon arrival and despatched to silicon.com on the day of my departure from Changi Airport via a free wi-fi service
Having arrived in Singapore during the late afternoon, I went for a walk to help my body normalise after the flight.
Within the first 50 metres I came across a crew sitting under huge umbrellas, splicing optical fibres at the side of the road.
I stood and watched for a while and recognised the tools, equipment and techniques which were all developed some 20 years ago and now are mostly automated and precisely controlled.
Here are some photos of what I saw:
I later found that the Singapore government has a policy and a plan. They are rolling out fibre everywhere and the target is 1Gbps to every home and office over the next few years.
So it will happen - when the Singaporeans formulate a plan, they stick to it and the job gets done.
After my walk I decided to log-on and catch up on my email but everything seemed very slow. I did a speed check and I was getting close to 1Mbps on both uploads and downloads on my hotel LAN. Huh. This didn't stack up - optical fibre to the hotel but only 1Mbps to my room?
Was there something wrong? I checked with the manager and he assured me that 1Mbps was the norm and this was considered to be broadband. I decided to just look surprised and be magnanimous. When you are a guest in a country, it is always best to be polite!
I made enquires and did a few tests on public sites, and it seems 1Mbps is a widespread norm for Singapore. I also tried my 3G dongle but could never get more than about 0.9Mbps. Strangely, a lot of my contacts seemed to accept that this rate is sufficient.
There seemed to be a paradox here. The Singapore government clearly gets it but it might be that some of the public don't - certainly my hotel manager didn't. Contrast this to the UK where the public gets it but the government doesn't.
You can watch a video I shot while in Thailand, about their broadband here.
Comments
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1. anonymous
The speed constraint is likely from international bandwidth. If you checked locally hosted sites you would find the speed to be much higher, I'm sure.
The international connection has always been the issue for the Singapore broadband experience.
2. TCW
Unfortunately, traffic to international sites (from Singapore) will always remain slow due to the limited bandwidth in and out of the region. It doesn't help that the bulk of online content are being served from halfway around the globe. As you have already mentioned, the 1gbps fibre network would only be ready in the coming years and is nowhere near functional. Even if it is complete, the enhanced speed would most probably apply to local content, i.e. on-demand video streaming.
3. anonymous
Hi! Hope you had fun visiting Singapore. Just an FYI, the 1Gbps plan will only be rolled out in late 2010, and only in certain areas in Singapore.
The overall plan is to complete the Fibre Optic cabling by 2012, so that iN2015 (Intelligent Nation 2015) can be met.
4. xtrocious
Hi Peter
Welcome to Singapore...
Actually, the government doesn't get it - we are not pleased with the current level of broadband connectivity here...
All you have to do is google starhub+broadband+complaints and you will see what I mean...
We were promised and sold 100Mpbs packages but you already know what we are getting...
Anyway, some of us feel that the government is also putting the cart in front of the horse...
It is not so much the connectivity speed within Singapore that is the bottleneck but the connectivity out of Singapore...
We had a grand project many years back called SingaporeOne - promised blazing access to locally hosted websites but 80% of our content is from overseas - not surprising that project faded without as much as a whimper.
5. John Sniadowski
Back in 1995 I did some work for the Library 2000 project in Singapore. Bear in mind the Internet was in its infancy then the project plans were very comprehensive with a scope to cover the entire population. The folks in government got it but the general population didn't, some body or other in their government is a technophile.
It has to be cultural because people on the street just shrug their shoulders and carry on as before until they are told they have to change. The people of Singapore will end up with way faster speeds than we have here and when it happens it will happen quickly. In the UK the question is asked at the top “what will users do with all this speed, nah they don't need it”. Lets set a benchmark speed that allows us to trumpet that everyone will have access to the Internet, then ignore the fact that the rest of the world will laugh at us riding the equivalent of a moped in the fast lane on the motorway!
6. Louis Chua
Hi Peter,
As the previous comments have mentioned, the fibre-to-home will take a couple more years. Also, most of the sites you had probably tried to access are located outside of Singapore.
Furthermore，the network accessed is probably the free Wireless@SG network. The free component is slower than the paid version.
For the 3G access, Singapore's local telco, StarHub, had launched a HSPA+ plan that can go up to 21Mbps.
Disclaimer, I work for StarHub. :)
7. Radical Meldrew
Peter you have to consider the cultural difference between the European and Asian communities…..The Singapore government is progressive, forward thinking and wanting to serve the public to the best of their capability……In contrast UK politicians don't want to know any details, they just demand something that a consultant has identified as an achievable target. Hardly anyone in our government is capable of making decisions unaided and the plethora of consultants only assist our ineffectual, confused progress.
8. Peter Cochrane
Anonymous Canada -
I checked with a local host too!
Peter
9. Peter Cochrane
TCW = 1G in the local loop will attract an expansion in the international capacity for sure. And I did local and overseas testing by the way - and the bandwidth always seemed to be 1Mbit/s ! Peter
10. Peter Cochrane
John = Interesting observations on cultural differences. All adds to the interesting evolution of the net for sure!
Peter
11. Peter Cochrane
Louis = Thanks for the insights - most useful. Hard to figure it all out on a short one week visit! Peter
12. Peter Cochrane
Radical = I'm more than inclined to agree with you. Peter
13. anonymous
If they're still splicing the optical fibre, I wouldn't expect fibre-type speed to translate quite yet.
Besides, Singapore only flips on the high-speed connection next year in 2010.
Laying of the fibre is only at the infrastructure level and isn't 'lit up' yet.
I don't think the users in Singapore don't understand fibre. They just don't have it yet.