Singapore - Singapore Launches ‘Super Wi-fi’ Internet Trials

Like other underdeveloped regions, the boom in Southeast Asia’s digital economy has been fueled by explosive growth in mobile Internet usage rather than the development of vast broadband cable networks.

Internet access, however, remains far from ubiquitous for the millions of people that live across the region’s tens of thousands of islands, where broadband or 3G penetration remains weak or nonexistent.

In Singapore, a consortium formed by software giant Microsoft Corp., local telco Starhub and the government’s Institute for Infocomm Research is piloting the commercial deployment of a new wireless Internet technology that employs unused parts of the television spectrum, known as “white spaces,” to transmit data.

So-called “super wi-fi”—technically not a wi-fi technology, according to the international trade body that has rights to the term—operates at a lower radio frequency than traditional wi-fi signals, which enables it to broadcast at a lower cost and over greater distances, through line-of-sight obstacles such as trees and buildings.

“We figured out how to use this spectrum in a way that currently wasn’t being used and discovered that this spectrum actually may be better for wireless connectivity than the existing wireless spectrum we’ve been working with,” said Michael Thatcher, Microsoft’s chief technology officer for the public sector in Asia.

Singapore is the first country in Asia to commercially pilot the technology, though it has already been launched in Wilmington, N.C., and the U.K. government is looking to form a regulatory framework for it following tests earlier this year. Trials have also been conducted in Kenya, Brazil, Japan, Uruguay and South Korea as well as in other cities throughout North America and Europe.

The Singapore White Spaces Pilot Group is engaged in what it calls “pre-competitive” pilot trials for local operators.

The Singapore Island Country Club has employed the technology to improve wi-fi blind spots at its 18-hole golf course, and StarHub is using it to provide Internet access to ships anchored off Singapore, which have predominantly relied on expensive satellite communication for offshore Internet connectivity.

The distance of transmission varies depending on the power of the antenna but the U.K. trials showed signals could travel up to 8 kilometers in some instances.

Singapore is already one of the most sophisticated markets in the world in terms of Internet access, but the mobile data network has in recent years faced increased strains that capacity has not been able to keep up with demand, prompting complaints from customers who say the system is not up to scratch.

There are 11 unused channels in the city-state’s current television spectrum, each with an eight-megahertz bandwidth that could each transmit data at speed of 14 megabits per second, comparable to current optimum mobile data speeds in Singapore.

More widely, super wi-fi could address some of the more pressing Internet needs in countries such as Indonesia, which has seen enormous growth in mobile technology, without some of the necessary infrastructure upgrades.

“Looking at island countries is a great scenario for some of what white spaces can do—it’s not just Indonesia, there’s also been a lot of interest in the Philippines” Mr. Thatcher said.

Super wi-fi remains in its infancy and is still a long way from being granted the necessary regulatory approval for spectrum use in Singapore: the Infocomm Development Agency has given the pilot group a limited license to test the technology commercially, and a more permanent arrangement will most likely depend on the pilot’s performance.

Handset makers have yet to implement the technology and mobile phones will require a special chip set in order to transmit and receive data through the super wi-fi spectrum.

Mr. Thatcher said the official publication of super wi-fi standards by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers—a New York-based industry body—expected early next year will give other private-sector players greater confidence in the technology.

Sam Holmes

http://blogs.wsj.com/

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