Telecommunication

Singapore has developed the status of a world leader in telecommunications through the building of a high-quality network and an extremely progressive regulatory environment for the local telecommunications sector.

The Next Generation Broadband Network (NGNBN) roll out and deployment in Singapore has effectively been completed and there continues to be a rapid take-up of fibre-based services.

Singapore has been working to shape itself into what it says will be the world's first Smart Nation' where data and analytics play a critical role in its society and economy.

Singapore's smart nation projects now include smart sensor networks for water and air, smart logistics that enable interoperability standards throughout the supply chain, and smart sensors in the homes of the elderly or chronically ill.

Singapore has developed to become a regional data centre hub for large enterprises across a range of industries. The diversity and number of local and international cloud providers entering Singapore data centres have significantly increased over the last three to five years.

Singtel launched its FutureNow Innovation Centre (FIC) to help enterprises accelerate their digital transformation. The FIC is a key innovation platform, designed to support the Government's Industry Transformation Maps (ITMs) focusing on Singapore's six key industry clusters.

Singapore's mobile market has displayed slow growth over the last few years due to a highly mature market. Singapore's mobile market remains highly competitive and operators have moved to a customer satisfaction and retention phase by offering value-added services as the market has matured. However, very slow growth is also predicted over the next five years to 2024, as there is little room for further growth in a highly saturated market.

SingTel's recent financial performance was one its weakest for more than a decade. It highlights the challenges faced by Southeast Asia's largest telecoms carrier as rival providers expand in a highly competitive industry.

The government launched it's Next Generation National Broadband Network (NGNBN) over a decade ago and the rollout is now essentially complete. It's based on a combination of fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) and wireless networks. The NGNBN has continued to form the basis of the government's broadband strategy and implementation.

Singtel completed the migration of its cable to fibre-based networks for consumers in 2018. StarHub plans to shut off its cable services by 2019.

Slow growth in the fixed broadband market is predicted over the next five years in a mature and saturated market. Optical fibre broadband also has seen strong growth as customers migrate to the NGNBN's fibre network. xDSL, on the other hand, has seen a decrease in usage and cable modem broadband also has been experiencing declining subscriber numbers.

Competition is now heating up in Singapore's mobile market with a fourth provider Australian telco TPG Telecom launching mobile services. By mid-2019. TPG had significantly expanded its free mobile service trial. TPG Telecom won the right to become the city-state's fourth mobile network operator (MNO). However, MyRepublic has launched its mobile services via an MNVO arrangement in partnership with mobile operator Starhub.

This is likely to see increased pressure on SingTel, Starhub and M1, potentially triggering another price war which is likely to lower ARPUs over the next few years. Over the past few years, price wars had broken out in the Singapore mobile data market indicating the heightened market competition that is now evident in a highly mature market.

Singapore saw strong growth in mobile broadband penetration for the past five years, however, since then, growth has been slow due to a mature and saturated mobile market. The mobile broadband market will be driven by increasingly faster speeds offered by the mobile operators as they roll out their 4G and 5G networks and improving tariffs due to strong competition.

The IMDA is backing the deployment of standalone 5G networks which will be capable of delivering a full suite of enterprise 5G capabilities, including network slicing and low latency connections for Internet of Things (IoT) applications.

The telecommunication infrastructure of Singapore spans the entire city-state. Its development level is high, with close accessibility to the infrastructure from nearly all inhabited parts of the island and for all of the population, with exceptions. Today, the country is considered an international telecommunications hub, an achievement that was driven by Singapore's view that high-quality telecommunications is one of the critical factors that support its economic growth.