By WINSTON CHAI

COMPETITION in Singapore's future broadband landscape is likely to extend beyond the service provider level to the OpCo (operating company) tier, with at least one other company being tipped to throw its hat into the ring.

Currently, StarHub subsidiary Nucleus Connect is the only OpCo that has been appointed by the government to operate the Next- Gen NBN (National Broadband Network) and wholesale bandwidth. It will receive a $250 million government subsidy to help defray the heavy project cost.

However, another company is expected to join the game in the near future but the catch is that the contender has to do so without any government funding.

'When we put in the bid for the OpCo tender, we assumed that we wouldn't be the only operating company. I do expect at least one more,' said Nucleus Connect CEO David Storrie.

'Now that our interconnect offer pricing is out for consultation, I'm sure people are looking at the numbers and making an assessment if they need to build their own OpCo or whether they see our pricing as being attractive enough.'

The company's 'interconnect offer' stipulates the different price points it charges service providers for using the NBN.

Unlike the earlier Network Company tender that was clinched by OpenNet - a joint venture of Singapore Telecommunications, Axia Netmedia, Singapore Press Holdings and SP Telecom - the OpCo licence is not exclusive to Nucleus Connect.

The government did incorporate a condition in the tender for the winning OpCo to have a five- year exclusivity period or until they claim a 25 per cent share in the local broadband segment.

However, this did not apply to Nucleus Connect as its parent company - StarHub - already has a strong footing in the market for providing Internet services.

SingTel has repeatedly said that it is still assessing the viability of starting its own OpCo.

Its associate OpenNet has already made room for another competitor as the fibre termination point it is currently installing at residential premises across the island has two ports - one for Nucleus Connect and the second for another OpCo.

If SingTel proceeds with the venture, Nucleus Connect stands to lose a customer that currently commands a major share in both the corporate and consumer broadband market.

According to Mr Storrie, 15 to 20 service providers will back Nucleus Connect when the new fibre-optic network becomes operational.

While the list of interested parties includes familiar operators and carriers, it also threw up a few surprises, he added.

For example, a security company plans to use the high-speed network to offer surveillance services, while another is working on delivering live traffic feeds via the Internet to television screens.

'We got a good idea of how many are interested to use the NBN when our interconnect offer was released,' Mr Storrie said at the sidelines of a contract signing ceremony on Tuesday.

At the event, Nucleus Connect awarded multi-million dollar contracts to network equipment makers Huawei and Alcatel-Lucent to deploy the so-called active infrastructure of the NBN and the operations and business support systems respectively.

The new network is expected to reach 15 per cent of local homes by the end of this year. More than half of local households will be fibre-ready by 2010 and nationwide rollout is expected to be completed by the end of 2012.

This article was first published in The Business Times.