ONE intelligent island

UNESCO Courier, March, 1999 by Malini Rajendran

Singapore is bidding to create a 'wired' economy where services converge on the Internet at an unparalleled pace to transform the island's chief resource - a well educated population - into a new breed of netizens

They have been a familiar sight across Singapore recently: bronzed Indian workmen clad in fluorescent orange SCV (Singapore Cable Vision) jackets labouring under the scorching sun to lay cable for the island state's suburban neighbourhoods. The rush to cable up the island is the result of an initiative by the government to transform the entire population into netizens, hooked up by cable modem to a nationwide broadband network, at a speed 100 times faster than current ISDN Internet access.

While the idea would seem ridiculous in a country as large as, say the U.S., Brazil or China, wiring Singapore is hardly a daunting task, given a total land mass of barely 647.5 square kilometres. Dubbed Singapore ONE, the national network aims to deliver a new level of interactive, multimedia applications and services to homes, businesses and schools. The authorities claim that this effort is the first in the world to go "live" and deliver such services to a mass user base.

"Singapore ONE is more than just a communication network. It will empower Singaporeans to work efficiently in a 'smart' environment, to facilitate the use and access of information to enhance their business, personal and family lives," Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong has stated.

The government considers it crucial for a resource-scarce country like Singapore to equip itself for the information age. Singapore's push to carve out a place in the global digital marketplace is especially significant in the light of the Asian financial crisis. While some Asian countries have been tightening controls on their markets, Singapore is trying to open up the economy further through a variety of initiatives, including ONE. Other Asian countries are looking on to see whether Singapore ONE may hold important lessons for them in their efforts to make the most of the information age.

With a per capita gross domestic product of $24,600, Singapore ranks among the world's top 20 richest economies. Singapore ONE is therefore not just a social service from a government to its people but rather a crucial investment in the country's only resource: its people. The government decision to commit $240 million for ONE infrastructure development reflects a commitment to upgrade the skills and knowledge of its well-educated population.

Services on offer range from banking, shopping, theatre ticket booking, and property viewing to distance learning. The various virtual colleges and scholastic programmes offer everything from engineering courses to interactive multimedia courses for schoolkids. Entertainment, like a favourite TV programme or video, is provided on demand. A chat on the phone with a friend is replaced by a virtual video conference. Instead of worrying about what the kids are doing at home, parents can keep an eye on them thanks to video-conferencing, with a webcamera sending images from home to the personal office computer.

40,000 users

Users of cable modems are charged a subsidized flat rate of about $21 a month and users of SingTel's ADSL lines enjoy a similar rate. The network began a one-year pilot phase in June 1997 and was commercially launched the following year. Only about 15,000 households have bought the package. However, the low subscription rates are offset by the growing number of users, according to officials at the National Computer Board (NCB), the main government body behind the project. "If you include users at schools, tertiary institutions, community centres and libraries, we have a conservative estimate of at least 40,000 users," said Ng Kin Yee, assistant director for programme management and new media.

Ng says it is normal for new infrastructure products to experience a modest initial uptake. "Singapore ONE is not just about infrastructure, it's all about building the skills, the people awareness among senior citizens, children and their parents who might have had a phobia for computers," he says.

The government began laying the groundwork to create an IT-literate population for Singapore ONE in the 1980s. Today more than 40 per cent of Singapore households own a computer and more than 350,000 out of a population of 3 million subscribe to the Internet. In fact, Singapore has been recognized as the second most IT-literate country in the world after the United States by the World Competitiveness Report, which is published annually by the Institute for Management Development (IMD) in Switzerland.

E-commerce on ONE

Singapore's electronic-commerce - or e-commerce, short for buying and selling over the Internet - infrastructure is equally advanced. Online purchases can be paid through cashcards or security credit card payment systems and banks use digital certificates and smart cards to offer secure online banking. Comprehensive legislation is also being considered to provide an electronic transaction legal framework to encourage more online commerce.