As Thailand still copes with fixing the underwater cables, Singapore offers broadband to everyone on the Island.
My last blog let me moan a bit, and I really thought I'd be finished with it this week, but no, we still have a slow download, slightly quicker I'll admit, but still slow, and that annoying little box pops up when I log on to my (expensive) broadband, telling me how sorry they are but it's not their fault. It's the broken cables.
Now I read that Singapore is offering wireless broadband to the population of that lucky state, and I think, why? How can they, not so far away, manage to do this? Come to that, why can't the powers that be on my home island, the Isle of Wight in the UK, do something of the same? My island would be a perfect testing ground for rolling it out across the country.
Singapore's free wireless broadband system across parts of the city-state, Wireless@SG, is part of a government plan to retain Singapore's edge as a good place to live and work. Three companies provide wireless access at 600 hotspots in hotels, coffee shops and shopping malls, partly paid for by the government. The programme is budgeted for 3 years but this may be extended. There should be 5000 spots offering complimentary service by September of this year.
On the first day more than 45,000 people signed up to the service, and many people report it as being faster than the paid wireless accounts.
Dream on, Mari, dream on.
