Provides Competitive Backhaul Services to Third Parties
Singapore, 6 February 2002 -- StarHub, Singapore’s innovative info-communications provider, today announced that it is finally able to provide competitive backhaul services to third parties requiring dedicated and reliable optic fiber based routes from their international cable bandwidth located at submarine cable landing stations in Singapore to their local switch and data nerve centres.
StarHub is now able to provide backhaul services for the APCN (Asia Pacific Cable Network) and SEA-ME-WE 3 submarine cables, as well as the recently landed APCN2 cable. StarHub operates high speed optic fiber based services from Katong, Changi and Tuas Submarine Cable Landing Stations to Data centre locations on the island.
Being a fully-licensed Facilities-Based Operator (FBO) with an international network of direct routes to 30 carriers, StarHub has adopted an ‘operator-neutral’ approach. It offers services to other operators and carriers that own their own capacity on submarine cables landing in Singapore. Already, we have received orders from five FBOs.
Although capacity on undersea cables is owned by a variety of would-be competitors, a domestic monopoly operator can use its sole ownership of the submarine cable landing stations as a bottleneck facility, thereby restricting access to others. In the absence of backhaul competition, total costs of bandwidth from a city in one country to a city in another country can be inordinately high.This disproportionately higher backhaul cost sends ripples through the domestic market, ultimately keeping retail prices for services such as Internet access and international data services much higher than they are in fully liberalized markets.
Mr Terry Clontz, president and chief executive officer for StarHub, said, "After many months of negotiations, StarHub has finally broken through a significant monopolistic barrier. There will be an immediate positive impact on other carriers and operators, who will see their underlying costs reduced through the introduction of competitive backhaul services by StarHub. These savings will pervade other segments in the market, ultimately benefiting all businesses and consumers in Singapore."
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