Asia Telecom 97: Convergence of telecoms and the Internet

Asia Telecom 97: Convergence of telecoms and the Internet

By Zatni Arbi

SINGAPORE (JP): Could there ever be a better place to hold
international telecommunication exhibitions and symposiums than
Singapore?

I don't think one would be easy to find one. Especially today,
as this island country is increasingly bustling and hustling with
its national program called Singapore One, a very focused project
that aims at turning the state into an intelligent island by the
end of next year.

And Asia Telecom has been the biggest telecommunications event
in Asia. The event, organized by the Geneva-based International
Telecommunications Union (ITU), has been held once every four
years in Singapore since 1985. I was very lucky to be able to
attend Asia Telecom 97 to get a little taste of what's coming up
in the world of telecommunications.

There has been talk of holding this special event more
frequently, namely once every two years. I guess the reason for
this proposition is the fact that booming telecom development
activities in the region, particularly in Singapore, Malaysia and
China, are expected to open up more enormous opportunities to
world-class telecom vendors such as Alcatel, AT&T, IBM, Cisco,
Siemens, Deutsche Telecom, Motorola, NEC, NTT and Nokia.

The responses have been a mixed bag, however, because it turns
out that the cost of staging a booth at this event is quite
staggering. Even giants in the telecom industry may have to scale
down their shows if they want to participate in every exhibition.
The decision whether to increase the frequency of the event is
still pending.

In this year's Asia Telecom, which took place at Singapore's
World Trade Center, 450 companies and organizations from 30
countries participated. The event lasted from June 9 to June 14.
Among my big favorites at events such as this, by the way, is
always the booths offering free copies of my favorite magazines,
Data Communications and Telecom Asia.

High-tech Island

Freebees aside, one very important highlight in this year's
Asia Telecom was that Singapore's Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong
inaugurated the pilot project of Singapore One at the opening
ceremony. I was not able to enter the forum as the ceremony took
place on Monday morning, but fortunately I was able to catch his
speech on the TV monitor.

Prime Minister Goh announced that 400 homes would take part in
the pilot project. What awed me completely was the fact that
Singapore has decided to allocate S$2 billion for the next five
years to ensure that every child on the island has access to a
PC. This clearly reflects how serious this neighbor of ours is in
preparing themselves and their young generation for the
information era.

All the 800,000 households in the country will eventually have
access to the island-wide broadband communication network.
Singaporeans will be able to subscribe either to SingTel for a
subscription fee of S$25 per month plus 5 cents per minute
charge, or to Singapore Cable Vision (SCV) for a flat S$35
monthly fee and get a bevy of services, including education,
entertainment, shopping, government and business. Whew! I just
couldn't help wondering Indonesia can also enjoy this kind of
very affordable and highly enabling high-tech facilities.

Telecom is the Key

As this is an event organized by the Geneva-based
International Telecommunication Union, there was an address by
ITU's secretary General, Pekka Tarjanne. He reiterated the
undeniable importance of communications and information
technology for economic wealth and social progress, and he cited
Singapore as an obvious example.

He said three important developments had taken place in the
telecom world.

First, there is now an agreement among those in the highest
level of government and industry that "universal access to basic
communications and information services will be the key to
sustainable global development in the twenty-first century".

Second, it has been recognized that the best way to ensure
access to telecommunication service is "to liberalize markets for
-- and promote trade in -- communications and information
technology products and services".

Finally, he drew attention to the birth of the first truly
global telecommunications systems, in particular the satellite-
based ones. These systems will provide all kinds of
communications services anywhere in the world.

In general, we know that everybody has long recognized the
crucial role of telecommunications in development. Unfortunately,
within some individual countries, there are still discrepancies
between what is said and what is actually done in the attempt to
capitalize on the technology.

In Indonesia, for example, we still have to face the problem
of the lack of the basic telecommunications service, the plain
old telephone (POT). Our telephone density remains one of the
lowest in the region, and most of the telephone lines are still
concentrated in urban areas.

The keynote speech by Christopher B. Galvin, Motorola's CEO,
was also insightful. He highlighted the need for regulators to
set the rules that give direction to the telecommunication
industry. He further underscored that the success of technology
deployment was dependent on the proper follow through of these
rules.

Big Blue Telecom

What other interesting things did I learn here? First of all,
I had the chance to learn that IBM had also become a major player
in the telecommunication industry. Their Telecommunications and
Media Industry division is just one among eleven industries for
which they offer their products, solutions and services.

IBM's move into the telecommunications industry is not
entirely surprising. As Stephen A. Mucchetti, General Manager for
IBM Global Telecommunications and Media Industries, emphasized in
his speech at the Technology Summit forum, it has now become
impossible to separate Internet from telecommunications
technology. Although his company does not get directly involved
in building the infrastructure, it was present in this event
because it had some offerings for telecommunications providers
and Internet service providers (ISPs).

Global reach

Another company that grabbed my attention the moment I looked
at the list of exhibitors was Iridium. They are going to put up
66 low orbit satellites in the sky, each of which will circle the
earth along the vertical axis. I spent quite some time at their
booth, exploring the graphics presentation of the entire
universal cellular network using a touch screen and a headphone.

Once it becomes available in a little over one year's time,
we'd be able to place or receive a telephone call anywhere in the
world using the same handphone with the same phone number. Better
still, there is only one bill to pay every month.

When there is a local cellular phone service, the handphone
will connect to it. When there is none available, the handphone
will communicate with one of the 66 satellites so that we'd never
be out of touch.

Another interesting development is the Personal Handyphone
System, or PHS. This low-cost, wireless communication device
lacks national coverage and cannot be used in fast moving
vehicle. On the other hand, the handset is much lighter (as
little as 80 grams in weight), offers up to seven hours talking
time and 500 hours of standby power.

In Japan, where it originated, the number of subscribers has
jumped to more than 7 million since its introduction in 1995. The
very good news is that dual mode handsets are now in trial in
Hong Kong.

Made by Panasonic, the PHS-GSM handsets will allow us to
switch to low-cost PHS connection when in the office or at home,
and switch to GSM connection and get connected via any of 150 GSM
systems around the world when traveling. With such a compelling
potential, it's no surprise that no fewer than eleven PHS players
joined force in the Japan booth at the Asia Telecom.

Next month, the PHS MoU Group, which also includes Indonesia,
will hold a symposium in Bangkok, Thailand. PHS is really gaining
momentum and we look forward to its explosion in this region.

PHS as the wireless local loop (WLL) is also going to be in
trial in Indonesia as well. We just hope that as the service
becomes more widely available, the cost to users will be truly
affordable so that our ordinary people on the street and in the
sawah, too, can actually begin to tap the benefits of
telecommunications. It's high time that we heeded what Motorola's
Galvin said about the need to ensure that regulations really do
what they are intended to do.