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SingTel, like very other telco around the world, is wrestling with the implications of the emerging market for rich media and video content for high-speed internet, or broadband services and third generation mobile phones, known as 3G. What content do people want? What are they prepared to pay for, and how? Should content be exclusive? What is the business model? Right now, no one knows the answers. 3G networks are still in their infancy, in Australia only one - "3" - actually operates. But Telstra, Optus and Vodafone have promised to launch this year. Broadband services are only now starting to reach critical mass in countries like Singapore, where penetration is 42 per cent and still growing at 10-15 per cent a year. Australia has lagged behind because of high pricing, mainly due to Telstra's protection of its traditional revenues and fear of competition. Penetration here is 18 per cent or so but booming. Former British incumbent BT is furthest down the content track. It is ramping up plans for a new content division called BT Entertainment. The telco wants to negotiate content licences and program rights across a broad spectrum of entertainment such as sports games and film. It has grand plans for a global content platform with a number of hubs. BT should be careful - previous global domination plans have come unstuck. One of the big question marks over the whole content game is whether it should be exclusive or not. BT seems to think so - or at least it wants to own rights and then on-sell them for a profit. But if the ticket gets clipped too many times, there is a danger that prices will get too high.

Singapore, Mar. 23, 2005 --As part of its efforts to enhance its suite of infotainment services, Singapore Telecommunications Limited (SingTel) is offering broadband customers more than 25 channels of new and exclusive video-on-demand (VOD) content. It is working with M2B World, a leading US-based provider of entertainment and education on-demand content, to provide the content from four broadband streaming websites designed and programmed by M2B World: Movie Mania - variety of English movies, sitcoms and documentaries; Dragon City - popular Mandarin entertainment programmes, dramas and movies; ExecutiveOnline - executive learning and lifestyle programmes by international gurus; GlamourGalore - glamour and high fashion programmes. SingNet, the Internet arm of SingTel, is marketing the new VOD content to its 1500kbps and 3500 kbps residential broadband subscribers. They can access any of the VOD websites via the IDEAS Video-On-Demand portal. Subscription for individual channels starts from as low as S$5.99 per month.

Behind the clash are two very different views of the future of music on mobile phones. Motorola and Apple would let customers put any digital tune they already own on their phones for free. That would help Motorola sell more phones, and it would help Apple expand its dominance of digital music. Verizon, Cingular and other wireless operators want customers to pay to put music on phones. They think getting a full song should be like getting a ring tone, snippets for which customers now pay from 99 cents to US$3. The carriers have no interest in conceding the booming digital-music market to the tech players. "When carriers see this future, Apple is front and center," says Andrew Cole, head of the wireless practice at consultant A.T. Kearney. Apple is "a competitor not to be embraced, but to be rejected."

That approach doesn't sit well with the megacarriers -- and they can hamper the sale of any cell phone Latest News about cell phone. Verizon and others typically subsidize the phones they sell to customers, often charging $200 less for handsets at retail than what they pay Motorola and others. Says Jeffrey D. Hallock, Sprint's vice president for strategic marketing: "We need to figure out a way that is economically viable for Sprint."

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