update COMMUNICASIA, SINGAPORE--The government today officially launched its 10-year infocomm roadmap and offered more details behind several initiatives that had been unveiled over the past year, including plans for a nationwide wired and wireless broadband network.

During his opening address this morning at the launch of CommunicAsia, Singapore's Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts Dr Lee Boon Yang, outlined the country's goal to create 80,000 jobs in the local infocomm market and grow infocomm export revenue three-fold to S$60 billion (US$37.6 billion) by 2015.

Lee said: "We aim to double the value-add of the infocomm industry to S$26 billion (US$16.3 billion)… We target for 90 percent of homes using broadband access, as well as 100 percent computer ownership for all homes with school-going children by 2015."

The island-state is hoping to achieve these goals, and more, through a 10-year roadmap dubbed Intelligent Network 2015 (iN2015)--the country's infocomm blueprint which encompasses initiatives across a wide range of industry segments including education, government, healthcare and financial services.

Chan Yeng Kit, CEO of the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), declined to say how much will be set aside to roll out all the initiatives that have been lined up in iN2015. But, Chan did indicate that it is likely to be a "multi-billion dollar" investment, going by the investments that the government had unveiled so far.

Before the launch this morning, the Singapore government had over the past months unraveled some details in the multifaceted "intelligent nation" roadmap, including a US$1.3 billion e-government plan, a US$70 million program to beef up manpower resources in the infocomm industry and plans for a new wired, and wireless, national broadband network.

IDA recently closed its request for tenders, which saw 33 proposals submitted for the wired broadband network--with cost estimates ranging from S$500 million (US$314 million) to more than S$5 billion (US$3.1 billion)--from local and foreign vendors, including Hutchinson Global, MobileOne, StarHub, Skycom Satelite Systems and SMRT Engineering.

The country's telecom regulator is targeting to award contracts for the wired broadband network in 2007, and is expecting the infrastructure to be completed by 2012. When it is up and running, the network will provide access speeds of at least 1Gbps.

Proposals for the wireless broadband network were submitted in March 2006, and the IDA expects deployment work to begin in December this year and be completed in September 2007. Nine proposals were submitted for this project from vendors including iCell Network and Qmax Communications, and seven of these included provisions for free 512Kbps wireless access as a basic service offering for the first year.

Lee said: "Innovation, integration and internationalization will be the basis of our masterplan. The capacity to innovate and create new business models, solutions and services will enable Singapore to be more competitive in a globalized environment."

During a media briefing, members of the iN2015 steering committee noted that while the island-state cannot compete with the likes of Asia's powerhouses China and India in some areas, Singapore can still differentiate itself in other ways.

Jackson Tai, vice chairman and CEO of DBS Group Holdings, explained that the committee was "very realistic" when it drew up the 10-year roadmap and realized that it would be tough taking on China's huge market size and "sheer numbers". Tai heads the financial services sub-committee in the iN2015 panel.

"But we also recognized Singapore's uniqueness… in its reliability and infrastructure," he said.

Lee Kwok Cheong, CEO of Singapore Institute of Management, said that the island-state will have to identify "which part of the value chain" it can play a strong role in and proceed to provide for those needs. Lee heads the manpower sub-committee in the panel.

He suggested that while China is well-suited to cater to the low- and mid-range of the value chain, Singapore's strengths are in architecting IT solutions and services--the high-end level of the supply chain.

The iN2015 steering committee believes that Singapore can ride on the successes of China and India, both of which excel in providing basic skillsets such as software coding and outsourcing services, and value-add by offering its expertise in areas such as research and development, project management and solutions architecture.

In coming up with the 10-year roadmap, the committee also looked back at the challenges that were encountered in past initiatives, so as to ensure that they would not be repeated in the new roadmap.

For instance, the infrastructure sub-committee looked at SingaporeONE, a nationwide broadband infrastructure built in the 1990s, but which never really took off.

Willie Cheng, chairman of Singapore Science Center, explained: "We did look at SingaporeONE and the lessons [that could be] learnt, and brought those into the plan for the new infrastructure." Cheng heads the infrastructure sub-committee in the iN2015 panel.

One of the issues with SingaporeONE, he said, was that the degree of adoption was smaller and slower than the industry had anticipated.

"So one key thing we looked at was cost of access, which is why the intent for the next-generation broadband network is to have an open infrastructure, separate from content," Cheng said.

In keeping the infrastructure as a separate component form content provision, he explained that the price of access can be kept affordable.

Other highlights in the iN2015 roadmap include:

• The Singapore government will gradually move to IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6), the next-generation Internet infrastructure, by 2010.
• A National Cyberthreat Monitoring Center is expected to be operational by early 2007.
• Patients will be able to manage and monitor their health from home through the help of remote monitoring products--targeted to be realized between 2009 and 2011.

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