By Winston Chai

THE construction of Singapore's nationwide fibre-optic network may have only just begun but as testament to the republic's reputation for breakneck efficiency, new services to take advantage of the increased broadband speeds are set to make their debut as early as April 2010.

This is the timeline set by the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) under a new project to help develop a flagship batch of applications and services to cruise the country's new Internet superhighway.

According to project documents, the telecommunications industry regulator hopes to 'catalyse the commercial deployment of impactful and innovative services' under its NGSIP (Next Gen Services Innovation Programme) initiative.

This is an important consideration as Singapore's new fibre-optic infrastructure will result in an exponential increase in bandwidth, and the new access speeds cannot be fully exploited by most Internet applications today. As the network becomes progressively operational over the next two years, market watchers say that it is important for authorities to think ahead and ensure that its billion-dollar investment is not under-utilised.

The IDA has extended subsidies of $750 million and $250 million respectively to defray the cost of building and operating the new network. It looks set to top these off with further investments into developing new services and applications that can be powered by breakneck broadband access.

The NGSIP programme is open to retail service providers (RSPs) that are keen to introduce new offerings using the upcoming cyber highway. These companies tend to be telecommunications or broadcasting licensees and their product portfolio could include everything from ultra-fast broadband packages to high-definition videoconferencing and collaboration tools.

At the same time, the IDA is also opening the door to Application Service Providers (ASPs), companies that offer software services to customers through the Internet. Well-known ASPs include business software provider Salesforce.com and Internet conferencing firm WebEx.

The IDA said that it will consider proposals from all RSPs and ASPs on the condition that the resulting services or applications will make use of the country's new fibre-optic infrastructure. It is also open to a joint proposal from the two groups of companies.

For example, a RSP looking into offering a new e-learning service through the new network may choose to rope in ASP partners to form a consortium.

The former could focus on providing the content while its ASP allies develop accompanying applications to allow users to log on and collaborate with each other for group projects.

The IDA has already issued its first call for proposals (CFP) for the NGSIP programme and companies will need to submit their plans before Nov 13.

Selected services from the initial batch of submissions will be made commercially available from April 2010. A second CFP will be launched in June next year to support another lot of services and applications that are slated for launch at the end of next year.

Singapore's new fibre-optic network will reach 15 per cent of homes by the end of this year. More than half of local households will be wired up by 2010, and the nationwide roll-out is expected to be completed by the end of 2012.

This article was first published in The Business Times.