Singapore - NBN is launched with the prospects of price and speed wars between providers

[asia one] CONSUMERS can enjoy faster, cheaper and more stable broadband connections with the commercial launch of the Next Generation National Broadband Network by Nucleus Connect yesterday.

Nucleus Connect is a subsidiary of StarHub, but is operationally separate from the telco.

It will be selling bandwidth to service providers.

For a start, prices for consumer 100Mbps broadband plans offered by home-grown firm SuperInternet, which is new to the consumer market, go for $49.80 per month, nearly 43 per cent cheaper than the rate for the most expensive residential 100Mbps plans now.

M1 also unveiled 100Mbps plans at $59 and $39 for home users and students, respectively.

Thanks to the high-speed fibre-optic network, initiated by the Government, new players will find it easier to provide broadband services. The network will cover 95 per cent of homes and offices by 2012.

Previously, service providers had to buy bandwidth from private broadband networks built by SingTel and StarHub.

Mr Benjamin Tan, managing director of SuperInternet, said that previously it was "not commercially viable" to buy bandwidth from SingTel if SuperInternet had fewer than 5,000 customers.

But with the new network, bandwidth is sold at a flat and transparent fee, which will encourage new providers to enter the market.

SingTel and StarHub together now own about 86 per cent of broadband subscribers, says research firm Frost & Sullivan.

Mr Adeel Najam, senior industry analyst with Frost & Sullivan, estimated that broadband prices are already falling annually by 3 to 4 per cent. With the new competition, prices could fall by 7 to 10 per cent.

SingTel, which unveiled yesterday a new 150Mbps plan for $85.90 a month and assorted services tapping on the new network, said it did not know if a price war could be triggered.

Commenting on other cheaper plans in the market, Mr Allen Lew, SingTel's chief executive for Singapore, said: "When you say...cheaper, you have to figure out what they're providing, what speeds, and exactly how much the plans would cost."

With this network, broadband speeds here could catch up with those of Asian markets, such as South Korea, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and might surpass them, said Mr Najam.

Media reports last year suggested that broadband speeds here lagged behind those of the abovementioned markets because Singapore did not have a nation-wide broadband network.

When asked about broadband speeds here, a spokesman for the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore said that according to its website, "current broadband plans here have generally delivered reasonable speeds to their customers within the service plans of their choice".

Mr David Storrie, chief executive of Nucleus Connect, said that with the advent of the new network, broadband speeds could be 12 times faster than what is offered now.

He also said that the broadband experience and speeds would be more "stable and consistent".

He added that Nucleus Connect would commit a minimum data-transmission rate of 25Mbps with the new network.

M1 will have the same committed rate, while SingTel consumers will enjoy a speed of at least 40Mbps with the network, the telcos' spokesmen said.

Broadband price war for Singapore?