Singapore approves bidders for broadband project

The Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) has qualified 12 bidders for the government’s Next Generation National Broadband Project. The announcement comes follows IDA’s December 2006 call for interested companies and consortiums to demonstrate their capabilities for approval to bid on the project.

In all, around 30 companies planning to bid either as individual entities or part of a consortium were qualified for the project. To qualify, companies had to show they have the financial resources and the experience necessary to build the network.

Singapore has been moving towards the construction of the next-generation broadband network since February last year, when the country’s prime minister, Lee Hsien Loong, announced plans to build a high-speed network. The network, which will offer speeds ranging from 100M bps (bits per second) to more than 1G bps and will connect all homes, schools and businesses in Singapore to the network.

The next-generation network is expected to be ready by 2012.

While Singapore is among Asia’s wealthiest and most developed nations, the country’s adoption of broadband and wireless networking technologies lags behind that of Asia’s most connected countries, such as South Korea. The next-generation broadband project, and the rollout of a public Wi-Fi network, have been proposed by the government as ways to help close this gap.

The next step of the next-generation broadband project involves discussions between the government and the pre-qualified bidders on the exact specifications and requirements of the project, which will be set forth in a formal tender document, expected to be released later this year.

Companies that were not pre-qualified for the project are not excluded from bidding, IDA said. They can either join an approved consortium or seek approval from IDA to bid on their own.