After returning home from a six-month study exchange programme in South Korea, student Loh Zixu had to get used to longer waits for file downloads and lags during video streaming.
It is no wonder that the 23-year-old architecture undergraduate felt the vast difference in broadband connectivity, with South Korea boosting an average download speed of 33.95 Mbs (bits per second) and ranking first in the world for its download and upload speeds.
This is according to a recent study conducted by global broadband speed analysis site, Speedtest.net. In contrast, Singapore ranks only 30th out of 178 countries surveyed - even behind Finland's Aland Islands.
For share trader Teo T W, who works from home and relies heavily on fast broadband speeds, he had to change broadband carriers late last year after experiencing a drop in speeds. Mr Teo, 42, said: "The current broadband speeds allow me to work, but it gets extremely slow during peak hours."
So why did Singapore, which came up tops for e-government rankings, fare so poorly for broadband connectivity?
Industry experts like Mr Amit Phatak, research director (IT) at market research firm TNS, said that having the right technology - which South Korea did by being wired up with fibre optic cables - has an impact on broadband speeds.
He said: "Customers feel the heat especially during peak hours. With increased uploading trends like blogging and posting, the service quality is expected to be under higher pressure."
Among developed countries, Singapore's 2015 Next Generation Nationwide Broadband Network plan to wire up homes and offices with all-fibre network has also been "quite slow", said Mr Lin Chi-hung, chief executive officer of Hong Kong-based Altai Technologies which provides wireless broadband technologies. He will be speaking at the upcoming CommunicAsia2010 Summit here.
He said: "The slipping of Singapore's ranking could only mean one thing: Other countries have continuously improved their broadband services whereas Singapore has stagnated." But he added that Speedtest's results cannot be seen in isolation as Singapore's high penetration was not considered.
Mr Adeel Najam, senior industry analyst with market research firm, Frost and Sullivan, said that though the fibre optic roll-out here is slower compared to other Asian nations, it is faster than other countries worldwide. He said in the next two years, the fibre roll-out here will catch up with those of South Korea.
When asked to comment on Speedtest's study, the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) said each study had its own methodology and assumptions.
An IDA spokesman told MediaCorp that as consumers become aware of the value of broadband, they are also increasingly seeking higher speeds. The 2015 master project that includes the NGNBN plan would do that, he added.
Both StarHub and SingTel said that consumers have responded positively to their broadband speeds and they will continue to ensure that they are fast enough to meet customers' surfing needs.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Ng Jing Yng
Quelle/Source: TODAYonline, 09.06.2010
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