Telephone System
In 1989 the government of Singapore started eliminating restrictions on the sale of telecom consumer goods to make businesses more competitive. In recent years the government of Singapore has realized that technological advances in the areas of telecommunications have made deregulation and liberalization almost impossible to avoid and have taken a number of steps to open the market. The government is working to deregulate the telecommunications market in order to attract new competitors, lower prices, and provide a larger range of services and products to the citizens. Along with the efforts to deregulate the industry, barriers to market penetration have been lowered and at the present time, Singapore does not have any barriers to imported telecom equipment.(7)
As a result of the current trend towards deregulation, the telecommunications market is becoming a fast growing sector of the Singapore economy due to its openness. This deregulation has also started to provide numerous opportunities for companies to get into the telecommunications market.
Singapore Telecom is a partially privatized government-affiliated monopoly which was privatized three years ago but will be allowed to maintain its monopoly on fixed voice services until the year 2007 and on mobile communication services until the end of 1997.
Cellular Telephones
In April of 1997, Singapore will receive its second mobile network operator, MobileOne Asia Ltd. MobileOne is a joint venture between Keppel Corporation and Singapore Press Holdings with Hong Kong Telecom and Cable & Wireless. In May of 1995, they were awarded a twenty year lease to be the second network provider. MobileOne will be the first worldwide operator to use a combination of two separate handphone technologies GSM and PCS, on a single network.(8)
Radio and Television
A major development in the TV, video, and film sectors was the recent privatization of the Singapore Broadcasting Corporation into the Singapore International Media group of companies, otherwise known as SIM. In the future, Singapore would like to become a producer of sound and image production and also a post-production center with ties to the television and broadcast industries.(9)
The Future of the Telecommunications
Market
Singapore's labor costs are continuing to increase and in 1985, these rising costs caused many companies to shut down their operations in Singapore. However, this is not likely to happen again because at the current time many companies have invested a great deal of time and money in order to produce electronics in the country and it would be very costly to pull out.
Today, Singapore is a relatively high-cost producer. Because of this the country must manufacture products using the latest technology and let other countries such as Malaysia take over the production of less sophisticated items. If the government of Singapore can continue to attract new, innovative producers to the country that require the skills of the advanced work force the country will continue to be successful.
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