Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 07 August 2007 11:34
Opinion and Analysis
Page 3 of 4
"Our early adoption of infocomm had given us a head-start and brought us tremendous benefits over the past 25 years. However, many countries, such as Korea, Japan, China, Thailand and Malaysia have also recognised the importance of infocomm as a competitive advantage. They are also making aggressive investments to enhance their infocomm infrastructures and capabilities. We cannot afford to take it easy. Or we will be overtaken.
"Our strategic response to these new challenges is the Intelligent Nation 2015 or i N2015 Infocomm Master plan. This is a 10 year master plan to transform Singapore into an intelligent nation & global city, powered by Infocomm. We envisage pervasive deployment of intelligent digital technologies to enhance our economic competitiveness, exploit new opportunities and transform life in every possible way.
"After careful study, we have concluded that a Next-Generation National Infocomm Infrastructure (NII) is a strategic enabler for Singapore's economic restructuring and competitiveness...[and] is critical to transform Singapore into an innovative and creative economy. This infrastructure has two major components: an ultra high-speed National Broadband Network; and a pervasive wireless broadband network...In order to exploit new possibilities, capture new business opportunities and maintain our regional infocomm hub status, the Government will catalyse the development of a Next Generation National Broadband Network...This will put Singapore firmly in the lead among competing countries such as South Korea , Japan and China that have also embarked on providing advanced broadband infrastructures."
By the end of the month the Infocomm Development Authority had issued an RFC seeking proposals from interested parties on the design, financing, construction and operation of the Next Gen NBN, saying it would use the responses to draw up detailed specifications, operating and financial terms of the network for the subsequent RFP. In particular seeking inputs on network capability. interconnection, market cover, timing, rollout strategy, construction and installation techniques.
