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S'pore Broadband Now as Common as a Home Phone
Irene Tham - Straits Times Indonesia | July 09, 2011

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helloinbali
4:51pm Jul 12, 2011

Wimax was promised all over Jakarta by Firstmedia a year ago, it most likely takes 5 years I guess... Pretending in their commercials the whole of Indonesia like in a second coloring all Islands Red... Please Firtsmedia what a missleading advertisment you show as you only operate in Jakarta and sure not the other parts of Indonesia... Get your business right first in Jakarta and step over to LTE like the rest of the world does... Besides where is the Fiber optic?

SirAnthonyKnown-Bender
1:07pm Jul 11, 2011

Forget the internet, Indonesia's gonna have huge problems simply supplying itself with enough electricity over the next couple of decades.

devine
10:49am Jul 11, 2011

I guess we will always be some steps behind. It is certainly much easier to build an infrastructure in a tiny 4.5mio city-state than in a 17000+ island archipelago. Internet via Satellite works decently well and reliable, although relatively expensive...


sk4t3b0y
10:04am Jul 11, 2011

I heard that singaporeans have fiber optics wired to their homes.. Well then it means datas transfer at the speed of light... In other part of indonesia however other than java bali and sumatra, even electicity is hard to get... Once i went to an island near batam, the electricity only be powered from 5 pm to 3 am.... And that's it... No electricity in the afternoon... Hope someone fron the govs read this, and have a heart to change this.

Roland
7:51pm Jul 9, 2011

Is there a time coming - let's say within the next 15 years Indonesia (at least the urbanized areas) can claim the same? My "high speed" speedy crawls with a varying rate of approximately 50kb/second maximum. I actually thought that the penetration with high speed data cables should be this year completed, at least it was an initial target when Minister Twitterful took over the chair. But I guess he's busy otherwise or has probably a certain lack of educational qualification (not his religious though!) to actually fill out his position...

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Singapore. Consumers here already know they cannot live without a broadband Internet connection, but now there are official figures to prove it.

In local households, a wired broadband service - delivered over telephone lines or cable connections - is now as common as a fixed telephone line.

And Singapore consumers now have almost as many wireless broadband subscriptions as mobile phone lines.

This is what the various “penetration rates”  - to use the industry jargon - show, according to new data released by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA).

The numbers show just how pervasive broadband Internet has become, not just for individuals who are increasingly accessing it on devices like smartphones but also in homes where a connection is shared among family members.

At 103 per cent penetration, or 1.2 million subscriptions, wired broadband's reach among homes here is similar to the 105 per cent of households with fixed phone lines.

“Internet access has become a way of life here - be it to access government services and general information, or as an educational tool for kids,” said Ramakrishna Maruvada, head of Southeast Asia and India telecoms research at Daiwa Institute of Research.

This has made an Internet connection at home far more essential than a fixed phone line for consumers like communications consultant Jacqueline Yeo, 38.

She gave up her SingTel landline four years ago. Most of her friends and business contacts reach her on her mobile phone and via Internet messaging tools like Facebook and Yahoo! Messenger, and voice applications like Skype.

“Sometimes it's easier to reach people this way than call them at home,” said Yeo.

Looking ahead, research firm Gartner expects the penetration rate of wired broadband to eclipse that of home phone lines as early as next year.

“People use broadband for so many things - surfing, gaming and paying bills - and not just to make phone calls,” said Gartner principal analyst Shalini Verma.

But home phone lines are not about to disappear from the market altogether because of senior citizens, she noted.

Also, service providers like SingTel and StarHub now throw in a free digital home phone line as part of their broadband packages - though it is unclear if these lines are included in the IDA's calculations to determine fixed line telephony's household reach.

Unlike wired broadband which is delivered to homes, wireless broadband is delivered directly to individuals via devices like smartphones and tablet PCs that access the Internet though Wi-Fi networks and 3G data connections.

With 138 per cent penetration of Singapore's population - or more than seven million subscriptions - wireless broadband is now almost as common as mobile phone lines, which have a penetration rate of 146 per cent.

Analysts said the growth of wireless broadband has been driven by the increasing use of smartphones.

According to Gartner, nine in 10 new mobile phones sold in Singapore are now smartphones. Another survey by market research company TNS has found that 72 per cent of the 7.3 million mobile phones here are smartphones.

Also, a rising proportion of customers have more than one wireless broadband connection, explaining why the penetration rate is more than 100 per cent.

“This can be explained by multiple device ownership - of smartphones, tablets and laptops,” said Ryan Tay, research manager of communications at IDC Asia-Pacific.

Business development director Aaron Koh, 35, is one such connected individual. The self-professed “road warrior” carries an iPad, a Samsung laptop and an iPhone to work every day.

When meeting clients, he powers up his laptop and iPad - both connected to the Internet wirelessly via a 3G SIM card encased in a plastic dongle. When he is on a train, he uses a second wireless broadband connection on his iPhone to check his e-mail.

The latest IDA figures put Singapore among the most Internet-connected nations by most measures, reckon analysts. This is even though methodologies vary on how to calculate broadband penetration.

According to Gartner, South Korea led the world in fixed broadband with 93 per cent of its households wired up last year. It was followed by the Netherlands (87 per cent), Denmark and Switzerland (both 78 per cent) and Hong Kong (77 per cent).

Reprinted courtesy of Straits Times Indonesia. To subscribe to Straits Times Indonesia and/or the Jakarta Globe call 021 2553 5055.