Singapore's Broadband Adoption On The Rise

The number of broadband users in Singapore surged 35 percent withinsix months, said NetValue.

The number of broadband (home) users in Singapore has grown by 35 percent in a matter of six months, up from 135,000 in October 2001 to about 172,000 in March of 2002, said Internet research firm, NetValue. This indicates that slightly more than 71,000 households on the island are now broadband enabled (see table 1).

Said the company’s director of sales, Alan Choo: “It is not surprising that Singaporeans are hopping onto the broadband wagon considering that the extended bandwidth enables faster downloading, better audio and visual effects, and greater multi-player capabilities.”

He added that the competitive pricing packages introduced by the broadband providers, especially in recent months, have also helped fuelled the broadband adoption rate in Singapore.

Users Behavior
Broadband users tend to behave very differently from their narrowband or (dial-up) counterparts. For instance, broadband users are found to spend more time on other activities besides Web surfing.

Compared to narrowband users, NetValue findings showed that the high-speed connection subscribers spent 36 percent more time on instant messaging, 44 percent more time on gaming and 56 percent and 86 percent more time on emailing and audio streaming activity, respectively. In fact, the proportion of time spend on these applications far out-weighs the time spent on purely surfing or browsing activities.

“Due to their ability to browse much faster and engage in more types of protocols more efficiently, it also means that broadband users can be more demanding, less tolerant for poor Web site interface, and tend to be bored faster,” said Choo.

“Hence, with the increasing number of subscribers, this spells the need for vendors to enhance and enrich their Web site contents more regularly at a faster pace,” he added.

Broadband Users Profile
Male surfers dominate the broadband arena.

The research found that 72 percent of the active broadband users are males compared to slightly over 50 percent of narrowband users.

Those aged 15 to 24 also constitutes about 45 percent of the broadband population compared to only 30 percent of the users using the conventional dial-up to access the Internet.

“We also see a surge in the proportion of student broadband users, comprising about 31 percent of the broadband population,” said Yong Soo Keong, NetValue’s research consultant.

He added: “This is not surprising since many students are known to play games over the Internet. Many of the popular multi-player online role-playing games (MMORPG) in the market today such as ‘Counter-Strike’ are bandwidth intensive. Hence, players on slow speed access would be easily terminated in the midst of a tactical mission.”

Broadband Adoption Rate In Singapore,
October 2001 to March 2002
October 2001 March 2002
Active Broadband
Users
135,000 172,000
Household With
Broadband Access
53,000 71,000
Broadband Connections : Cable + ADSL
Source: NetValue



Behavior Of Broadband Users vs
Narrowband Users
Narrowband Users Broadband Users
Sessions 22 47
Domains Visited 61 Domains Per
Visitor
152 Domains Per
Visitor
Page Views 1,039 Pages Per
Visitor
3,144 Pages Per
Visitor
BASE: Singapore Home Internet Users, March 2002
Source: NetValue



Note: NetValue defines an active broadband user as one that logs on to the connection at least once in the reference month of October 2001 to March 2002.

Reprinted from asia.internet.com, an internet.com site

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