Singapore has topped the first ever ranking for fibre coverage in a city in Asia-Pacific. The smart nation boasts 93 per cent of fibre-to-the-home coverage, as well as 100 per cent 4G and 10,000 wi-fi hotspots.
The Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) Council Asia Pacific evaluated cities on fibre coverage as well as how extensive they are using those networks for connected devices and collecting data.
Champs and Challengers
Cities are ranked in two categories: Champs and Challengers. Champs have almost complete fibre coverage all around the city and have reached maturity in the smart projects that have been deployed. These cities generally have a fairly complete smart city framework in place across different areas as well as operational smart projects.
Challengers are cities that are actively deploying fibre infrastructure in order to realise their smart city strategy, but don’t yet have a full panel of smart services based on fibre. Instead, the focus is on specific domains.
Following Singapore in the Champs category is Tokyo (Japan) and Seoul(South Korea) in second and third places respectively, both with roughly 90 per cent FTTH/B coverage. Hong Kong, Busan (South Korea) and Melbourne (Australia) are fourth, fifth and sixth, respectively.
The ranking promotes the specific concept of a “smart fibre city” as the FTTH Council believes that only a smart city enabled by fibre can be a genuine smart city
In the Challenger category, Shanghai (China) scored highest, with around 90 per cent FTTH/B coverage. Second and third are Hangzhou and Wuhan (China). Runners up are Selangor (Malaysia), Jakarta (Indonesia), Bhubaneswar (India) and Ho Chi Minh (Vietnam).
The ranking promotes the specific concept of a “smart fibre city” as the FTTH Council believes that only a smart city enabled by fibre can be a genuine smart city.
“The research into smart fibre cities shows that we are just at the beginning of these developments,” states Venkatesan Babu, president, FTTH Council Asia-Pacific.
“Across APAC, we see many mature projects in areas such as e-government and security, with 5G-based applications in, for example, transport and disaster management coming up. We have great expectation for the large numbers of pilots in areas such as healthcare, smart grids and autonomous traffic.”
