TRPC and IIC Singapore Forum: International and Domestic Broadband Connectivity in Singapore

Date: Tuesday 1^st April, 3.00pm-6.00pm

Venue: Microsoft Singapore, Level 22 – One Marina Boulevard (NTUC Building)

IIC Singapore, in cooperation with TRPC, is organizing a forum on International and Domestic Broadband Connectivity in Singapore.

On behalf of IIC Singapore, TRPC invites you to participate in this forum on Tuesday 1^st April. This session will follow Chatham House rules. As seating will be limited for this session please RSVP at your earliest convenience.

About the Forum:

Bandwidth and connectivity are the arteries of the digital economy. Everything from video-downloads to cloud-based services, and from data centres to the Internet-of-Things needs connectivity of sufficient bandwidth. This is especially true of an economy like Singapore which plays the role of a regional hub for multinationals and for ASEAN trade and traffic of all kinds.

So just how well is Singapore doing in terms of bandwidth and connectivity? The forum will consider the question from two angles: the international and the domestic.

International: On paper international connectivity may appear substantial, but there are major barriers to the smooth maintenance and repair of submarine cables across the entire region. For example, applying for exemptions and permissions to enter ports or coastal areas is often subject to lengthy delays, unnecessarily complex procedures and charges which hamper the speedy recovery and the regular maintenance of the cables. One much needed solution is a harmonization of policy for APAC.

Domestic: Singapore looks good by comparison to its neighbours, but not so good compared with, for example, Hong Kong, and for the business market segment the cost of backhaul for international carriers can be as much as 1/3 total international costs. This means the costs of serving data centres is higher than it should be.

Data Centres: Singapore has been incredibly successful in attracting overseas investments into data centres, and the Government has done much to promote Singapore as a safe environment for data collection, storage and transfer. The forum will provide an update on data centre requirements and business models – for the previous forum on DCs see https://trpc.accesspartnership.com/old_archive/singapore-as-a-data-hub/

This session will follow Chatham House rules.

Download the event flyer: TRPC-IIC Singapore Forum: Connectivity

Download the briefing paper: Broadband Connectivity – Briefing Paper

Download the event summary: 2014_04_1_Connectivity-Forumsummary_IIC

Speakers

1. Ong Tong San, Cluster Director (Competition and Resource Development),  IDA  on Singapore’s Approach to Broadband Connectivity
   • Singapore’s Approach to Broadband Connectivity
2. Simon Smith, Director – Regulatory Affairs, PacNet on International Connectivity: Permissions, Exemptions and the Need for APAC Harmonization Policy
   • International connectivity – submarine cables
3. Dieter Sieber, Vice President, Regional CTO, Telecom Services and Solutions, T-Systems on Backhaul Costs and Competition
   • Connectivity Cost and Competition
4. Markku Lepisto, Senior Technology Evangelist, APAC, Amazon Web Services on The Amazon Cloud Model in Singapore
   • Return on Agility – Serving’s Today’s Workloads
5.  Wong Ka Vin, Managing Director, 1-Net  on Next Generation Data Centres