Singapore plans 100-megabit national Internet

Singapore will be the first country to have a very high speed national Internet service, the territory's government has revealed today in a new long-term plan. Called the Next Generation National Broadband Network, the service will offer a backbone that promises at least 100 megabits per second in downloads and 50-megabit uploads; it will also be designed to scale as high as 1 gigabit per second downstream for future upgrades, according to officials. Instead of selling service itself, Singapore will sell bandwidth to providers who will have to compete, potentially offering better pricing.

The high-speed service will initially be available in 2010 for specialized uses such as HD video for teleconferencing, grid computing, schools, and other services that depend the most on a fast Internet onnection to work. The full network should be ready by 2015, when any resident of the southeast Asian nation should have access. Singapore does not intend to use the service just for computers and believes that phone services will piggyback on the technology.

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