ìHis U.S. colleagues call him Ken. And nothing could be more appropriate,î declares an advertisement for the wired city of Singapore. ìFor while Saw Ken Wye lives half a world away in Singapore, heís just the kind of Bob, Dave, Jeff or Pete youíd like to have on your payroll here in the USA.î

Mr. Saw Ken Wye also just happens to be the managing director of Microsoft Singapore. The fact that he features prominently in this advertisement from the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore illustrates the close relationship in Singapore between the government and the IT industry there, both of which have a vested interest in developing Singaporeís reputation as Asiaís most connected city.

Three years ago, Singapore kicked off an ambitious plan by launching a nationwide broadband network, Singapore ONE. In September, Mr. Lim Swee Say, Singaporeís minister for state for information and communications technology, acknowledged that this had been a ìbold stepî and a high-risk venture at a time when international standards were still being developed for the main broadband delivery mechanisms, digital subscriber line (DSL) and cable modem. There was also no killer application in sight for broadband internet. ìBut we decided it was a risk worth takingÖBy positioning ourselves as an early adopter of broadband technology and an innovator in broadband applications, we aimed to strengthen our competitiveness as a global Infocom hub in the Asia Pacific,î said Mr. Lim.

But has this early dive into the broadband arena paid off? At the moment, there are only two broadband access service providers in Singapore: SingTel Magix, a subsidiary of incumbent telecom provider Singapore Telecom; and cable company SCV. According to U.S. research firm the Yankee Group, there are still only 51,050 DSL subscribers and 23,000 cable modem subscribers in Singapore. That is not a huge number, considering that SingTel Magixís ADSL service was the first commercial ADSL deployment in the world and has been available since November 1997.

There is some disagreement over the real level of broadband usage. In July, the Singapore Government acknowledged that current ADSL and cable modem subscribers represented only a small percentage of the 800,000 or so households in Singapore. By September, Mr. Lim claimed that there were 250,000 broadband users in Singapore and that the broadband user base had more than doubled in the past six months. A series of deals with content providers is believed to have helped raise interest among users. In March, Singtel Magix did a deal with Israeli firm Exent Technologies to provide ASP hosting for educational titles on CD-ROM; in May, the IDA made a deal with Taiwanese content provider GigaMedia. But some at least of the new online customers are cable modem users.

Despite this, it is clear that broadband access, which has been rolled out, via the Singapore ONE portal, to schools, homes and public access points across Singapore, has not taken off as quickly as was hoped. The Government says a number of recent moves will help expand broadband take-up, including an investment of 87 million Singapore dollars by SingTel in upgrading its high-speed internet services. The telecom company also says it is ramping up its broadband access service capacity by 250% over the next two years. It intends to offer free ADSL services to local small and medium-sized businesses. SCV is launching a new cable-based phone service on its broadband network, using Voice over IP and is also launching a trial in which 3,000 Singapore families will be able to access internet services via television.

Mr. Lim says the Governmentís first priority now is to speed up the pace of innovation. To do this, the Government is working with companies such as RealNetworks and On2 in providing a greater range of content on the existing broadband networks. Microsoft has decided to use Singapore as the launch site for the companyís Asian Broadband Jumpstart Initiative, which is rolling out new broadband applications. By strengthening what Mr. Lim calls the ìbroadband content ecosystem,î the Government hopes to encourage more online service providers to convert existing narrowband services into broadband applications.

An educational program is also in place to familiarise the next generation of Singapore consumers and business people with innovative broadband-based services. SingTel is involved in providing a five megabits per second ATM link to all 360 primary and secondary schools, connecting them with a central digital multimedia storage facility and pupils in some schools are experimenting with creating their own multimedia-based lessons. Students in one school are filming science experience and putting them online, for instance.

But Mr. Lim acknowledges the chicken and egg situation now facing the development of further broadband services in Singapore. ìWe need to bring more benefits to the existing pool of broadband users, both home and corporate users, for us to attract more users to take up broadband services on Singapore ONE and sustain the growth of broadband here,î he comments. Earlier this year, the Government announced a package of 150 million Singapore dollars to encourage regional and broadband players to deploy more content and services into Asian market and in September, as part of this investment, launched an international content hosting scheme, supporting hosting of innovative broadband content for Singapore ONE users and for delivery to other markets in the region, with support extended under the new scheme to up to two years, compared to only six months under the previous online hosting scheme.

Singapore claims to be one of the most wired countries in the world. All its households have copper installed. By 2005, the Government predicts broadband access will be pervasive across the country. But one of the problems is that this access will come in many flavors, ruling out economies of scale for suppliers. Even the DSL roll-out has hit problems, as its two most prominent flavors, ADSL and G-lite, are seen to be unable to support increasingly intensive bandwidth applications.

The answer appears to lie with fiber, despite its cost and the hassle involved in digging up roads in order to lay fiber-based broadband networks. According to the Infocomm Technology Roadmap, published in July by the Singapore Infocomm Development Authority, fiber is the only medium capable of supporting any bandwidth requirement and is therefore the strategic investment that Singapore should adopt for the long term.

The Government of Singapore has invested a lot in its broadband infrastructure. It is now waiting to see whether payback time has arrived and whether it can continue to attract inward investment from major players like Microsoft and others, as it seeks to position itself not just as the most wired country in the world, but also as the centre for Asian broadband services. As the Infocom advertisement puts it, Singapore has the kind of people who ìcould be putting the dot in Asia.î