It looks like Singapore is beginning to roll out Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) networks, upgrading the current Hybrid-Fibre-Coaxial (HFC) network, which currently constitutes a large part of Singapore’s broadband delivery medium.
In FTTH networks, fibre cables are run all the way down from the service provider and terminated directly into the consumer’s home. In HFC networks, although the backhaul comprises of fibre cables, they’re terminated further away from homes, and coaxial cables take over this last mile instead.
I first noticed the new cable installations nearly a week ago. Closer inspection of the markings revealed that they were indeed fibre cables, and the huge rolls of them lying around on the lobby suggested large scale deployment. Conversing with the technicians who were responsible for them confirmed that.
A few days later, these units begin to appear on the landing of every pair of home, which I can only surmise to be FTTH termination equipment.
Although these cables do not seem to be carrying any form of data at this point in time, they are perhaps the most important groundwork ever done for Singapore’s next generation broadband network. Last mile equipment is usually the hardest and most expensive problem to tackle, but it seems to me that we have solved that already.
