1-Net Singapore Pte. Ltd., the key infrastructure player behind the island’s
emerging SingaporeONE broadband
multimedia network, has revealed plans to build the country’s
first e-business park.
Currently, the Singapore government has
been proactive in setting technology parks within the island
and around the region and the move could be a primer to expand
this concept overseas.
The company plans to set up an industrial estate which
will give interested businesses the ability to have
high-speed internet access and broadband multimedia access
from one central location. It is now in discussions with
several property developers on executing the plan to set up
the premise.
The company plans to invest about S$3 million in setting
up the necessary infrastructure like the networks and
switches and hopes to get the estate ready for occupation by
mid 2000. The aim is to provide every tenant in the park with
broadband multimedia access at low cost since the site will
sit on the SingaporeONE backbone.
The company will be able to offer broadband Internet
access at a low cost because tenants in the park will get a
direct connection to the SingaporeONE network, rather than
through the traditional leased line approach. Prospective
tenants at the park will be able to enjoy bandwidth of up to
622 Mbps, according 1-Net’s current business plans.
Currently, the three main Singapore ISPs — SingNet Pte.
Ltd., Pacific Internet Ltd. and
Cyberway Pte. Ltd. — together have
four pipelines of 155
Mbps each.
Another key feature of the park is that it will house a
broadband access node, also found in the SingaporeOne
network, seldom found in other industrial parks. Other
features of the e-business park will include telcommunication
standard data centres with backup power supplies and links to
telephone exchanges and ISPs around the clock.
In setting up this park, the company said it plans to
bring related expertise from areas like system integrators,
content providers and logistics fulfillment services under one
location.
The move comes at a time when a recent survey by the
Singapore National Computer Board showed
that companies were reluctant to get into e-commerce because
of high start-up costs.