As technology users welcome 2012 everywhere, it’s clear the year that had just passed was filled with no little controversy and memorable incidents.

From Steve Jobs’ death to the delay of the much-awaited iPhone 5, from the rise of Android devices to Nokia’s return with its Windows Phone devices, and finally, with the potent mix of mobile devices and social media that  helped ignite protests in the Arab Spring and Occupy Wall Street, but also encouraged the thuggery of the London riots, 2011 was a big year in technology.

The next 12 months look to be just as interesting, as existing technologies mature and grow, while other new trends emerge. Here are five things to look out for in 2012:

1. The arrival of the “transform” device
Just a few years ago, it was unfathomable that people would junk their desktop PCs for laptops. Because the portable device had a smaller screen and usually lesser computing prowess, the portable device never matched up to the silent giant under the desk.

These days, however, with power-efficient yet advanced CPUs and graphics chips, laptops can do the job just as well, plus they can be hooked up with a monitor, keyboard and mouse easily to transform into a desktop PC in a jiffy.

The same is happening with tablets and smartphones. In 2012, there will be more devices like the Motorola Atrix, first unveiled in early 2011, that basically turns into a laptop once it is docked with a laptop dock. The Atrix taps on its dual-core chip to run Webtop, which is based on Ubuntu Linux, to give users a regular desktop OS look and feel. It runs the OS you prefer at any time, all in one device.

Essentially, you only need one smart device – your phone or tablet – to do everything you need in future. What you will have are many docks or keyboards and screens to hook up to this increasingly powerful (expect quad core gizmos in 2012, starting with the Asus Transformer Prime) yet portable device in your hands.

Desktops and laptops will definitely still be around, but the mobile gadget is set to be the central device in your life.

2.  Windows 8 brings “touch” on everyday PCs
Related to this portable device rush is Windows 8. The upcoming Microsoft OS, expected this year, is being billed as the biggest upgrade in years for one reason – it is going to unify both mobile devices and PCs with one OS.

It works with touch, and features a Windows Phone-like tile system, where users will be given a panel of information and the ability to go into the nitty gritty only if they wish to. The big icons and friendlier interface also mean that this is the first time the Start button and taskbar – at least in their present forms – will be out of the picture.

Along with Windows 8′s arrival, expect computing of all types – from smartphones to laptops to desktops – to tap on the novel OS.

What to expect? Look to something like the Samsung Slate PC, which crams a powerful Intel dual-core CPU into a thin, portable tablet that can be hooked up with a keyboard and screen to become a full-fledged desktop. It runs Windows 7 now, but come next year, devices like these will sport the even more touch-friendly Windows 8.

3. Tougher times for Apple
It’s not just Steve Jobs’ passing that will affect Apple for the coming year, but also the fact that it is a company that wins big because of the very sharp innovation curve that it sets out each year.

When the iPod was commoditised, the iPhone became the next big thing; when Android smartphones managed to grab huge chunks of market share in 2010, the iPad became the market-conquering portable gizmo in a class of its own.

The question in 2012 is: what next? Surely, there’d be new versions of the iPhone (after the disappointing iPhone 4S) and iPad (which still has a good lead over all over Android rivals). But can these upgrades keep Apple at the top of the pile, or will it see its innovation and design lead cut short in 2012?

The emergence of the Windows-based Ultrabooks in 2011 from Asus, in particular, is a clear answer to how fast the competition is catching up, in this case, with the MacBook Air.

In the next 12 months, Apple will find the going even tougher. Users are often willing to accept Apple’s closed “my way or the highway” approach because of the perceived better design and innovation from the company, but it has to keep coming up with new winners to redefine the field. In 2012, it needs another big winner to pull away.

4. Say hi again to a smart TV
It’s been prophecised several times before, but 2012 could finally see the arrival of smart TVs that do more than just show your cable TV programmes or Blu-ray movies in all their 60-inch Full HD glory. These TVs could be the conduit to many services and apps that were just becoming common in 2011.

Yes, Facebook will be there, as will Twitter and other PC-based services and apps that you had seen on your 2011 Samsung or LG TV when you were free enough to venture into some of its sub menus. But what about YouTube, or rather, a YouTube-type service – on steroids?

Think of an app that is smart enough to offer the same multi-tasking you’d expect on a PC screen, say, talk to a friend on a chat window while watching a live football match, or checking out background information from Wikipedia on the JFK assassination, if you are watching a documentary on it on a National Geographic app, for example.

Not so new, I hear you say? The main difference this time is that the intelligence is built into the TV and possibly delivered straight to the screen – over the TV’s Net link – instead of via a third-party set-top box and third party broadcaster.

Sure, it’d be a leap of faith for content executives who have always preferred to work with their favoured “platform partners”, i.e. broadcasters like StarHub and SingTel.

But for indie channels and content owners looking to jumpstart their work by showing their programmes direct to viewers, they can now create their own content and app and reach out to viewers – in the same way cellphone app developers sell their apps direct to users.

Creating a smart TV programme would thus involve skills needed to develop an app for, say, the mobile phone or tablet. Will this model work for TV? Well, it’s already proven already by Apple and Google in their respective app marketplaces, and what’s there to stop you paying S$2 for a movie on a smart TV, just like you’d buy an app on your phone?

If rumours hold true and Apple decides to create its own TV set in 2012 or if Google takes YouTube to the big screen by signing up more content creators as it has done in 2011, then the next 12 months could see big changes in the way video content is created, delivered and consumed in the big screen in the living room.

5. Fibre broadband takes off in Singapore
This is a banker of a trend, because we know that 95 per cent of the city will be covered by the fibre optic network this year. Going by the long waitlist to turn on a fibre broadband service now – up to a month with M1, we are told by users – the demand for light-speed downloads is going to be even higher in 2012.

It helps, of course, that the network has finally forced open a market that once was dominated by SingTel and StarHub.

Take M1, for example. It used to have to rent the network from the two telcos, but now it can get wholesale access at the same price as its bigger rivals, and it can price its services competitively, as a result. Its S$39-a-month 100Mbps fibre plan sold at computer expos in 2011, for one, has become the benchmark to follow in 2012.

You shoot a video on site in Los Angeles during the day.

By evening, the unedited footage is sent to a backend processing center in Asia, where they proceed to work on it till the wee hours of the morning.

By morning, the video is ready to be distributed all around the world.

This is the promise of what an interconnected world can do. Similar to the outsourcing of call centres to India, the media industry is shifting work — like backend content formatting and distribution – to Asia.

And this digital media industry is booming.

At a press luncheon last week, Encompass Digital Media, a global broadcast service provider, announced plans for an estimated US$20 million investment plan into Singapore to grow its venture in the region.

This will be used to upgrade Encompass’ technology infrastructure like the Singapore facility, which at 88,000 square feet is the largest digital media hub in Asia. It will also be used to grow the employee base from 140 to 200 by the end of 2016.

According to Deepakjit Singh, manging director of Encompass Singapore, revenue growth in Asia has increased year on year by 15 to 20 percent in the last two to three years.

The business potential is so good that they in fact had to turn away last minute customers who turned up the Broadcast Asia 2011 show to see them.

It wasn’t that case when they first started out three years ago in the region.

“No one would turn up at our booth at Broadcast Asia,” explained Deepakjit, as then when they started out few had heard of them.

From starting out as a backend facility for Discovery Channel, Encompass Asia has grown its customer base more than 10 times since then.

But the industry is a cut-throat one, and according to Deepakjit, if they do not “continually innovate”, they will be overtaken by hungrier competitors in the region.

For now, as the business is a volume game, Encompass Asia is in a sweet spot as it managed to “get critical mass” in the market.

Said Deepakjit: “It’s cheaper for me to add a channel for distribution than any of my competitors as we’ve already spent on our infrastructure.”

He also cited Singapore’s political stability and strong intellectual property laws as reasons why citing a media hub in Singapore made good business sense. Encompass Asia is not funded by the Singapore government in any way.

“They’ve been very supportive of what we do here,” he said.

Mediacorp plans to deliver its seven free-to-air TV channels over the Internet within the next year, providing another way to view the Singapore broadcaster’s local programmes as well as other content that it has the rights to.

Revealing this today, Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts, Dr Yaacob Ibrahim, said the new service offered a good way for Singaporeans overseas to keep abreast of events at home.

More details will be available as the service nears rollout, he said today at the opening of the imbX (Infocomm Media Business Exchange) event, which incorporates CommunicAsia.

Mediacorp is also said to be planning for an interactive service that will deliver free and and premium content over broadband to PCs, tablets and mobile phones. Called OTT (Over The Top), the service is expected to be launched later this year.

Dr Yaacob also revealed that Singapore was looking to adopt the latest terrestrial digital TV standard known as DVB-T2, an upgrade over the current DVB-T or Digital Video Broadcast-Terrestrial. A trial network is expected to be installed in September to test how the technology is suited to Singapore’s terrain, he added.

DVB-T is a TV standard used commonly in Europe. Promising higher bit rates suitable for bandwidth-hungry high-def programmes, DVB-T2 is already used in Britain, Italy and Sweden.

After years of talking about it, Singapore’s number three telco finally joined the market for pay-TV services on Thursday with a relatively safe and small lineup of TV programmes, along with a slate of casual games for the family.

While M1′s service does not have the stellar A-list of football or movie content, its success or failure in pay-TV could be a test of how competitive Singapore’s new telecom landscape will be, after being reshaped with new next-gen broadband services and changes to exclusive pay-TV content deals this year.

M1′s new service, called 1box, is very much targeted at the family and is available to its ADSL (asymmetric digital subscriber line), cable modem and fibre optic users. Programmes include education content for primary school students at S$2 a month per channel, music concerts featuring Lady Gaga and Coldplay for about S$5 a month, plus pay-per-view movies for S$2 to S$5 a month.

The lineup looks lightweight now when compared to the extensive movies and sports content that rivals SingTel and StarHub have. But to be fair, SingTel’s war-chest in bringing TV to its quad/triple-play suite of services is hard to match, while StarHub has been in the pay-TV business for more than a decade, the majority of those years as a monopoly as Singapore Cable Vision.

Thus M1′s move appears more strategic than game-changing, for sure. Its entry into the fray is not going to shake up the market for now, but things could get interesting when exclusive content contracts that SingTel and StarHub have drawn up with the likes of Discovery, HBO and the English FA Premier League expire in the coming months and years.

To recap, the Media Development Authority (MDA) ruled in March this year that exclusive deals are to be scrapped in favour of pay-TV operators carrying one another’s programmes on their own set-top boxes. The aim: consumers to get what they want on one set-top box, instead of being tied to several operators to watch, say, Discovery Channel or the Barclays Premier League.

Now that it’s in the game, M1 could conceivably carry some of SingTel’s or StarHub’s content when the government regulator finally gets its content-sharing ruling in action in the first half of next year. It’s been pushed back from September this year, no thanks to rumblings from content owners, but the MDA appears to have gone too far ahead to turn back to the bad old days of ruinous exclusive deals now.

Crucially, one of the rules that MDA has put forward is that a pay-TV operator has to have at least 10,000 subscribers to be able to carry the exclusive content. That means M1 has to get 10,000 subscribers in the next six to seven months before it can ask for SingTel’s or StarHub’s programmes to be shown on its 1box service.

Is that do-able? Very much so.

Let’s look at some numbers. Between July and September this year, SingTel roped in 25,000 new subscribers on mio TV, adding up to 245,000. While M1 won’t grow as fast without SingTel’s live BPL matches, 10,000 subscribers is within the means of a company that can upsell to its close to 1.9 million mobile and fixed line customers.

However, the first thing I would suggest to M1 is to waive or reduce the box rental fees, which cost between S$5 and S$12 a month for its broadband customers. Sure, it has to make money back from the cost of these boxes, but why not consider them sunk cost, like part of a cellphone network, that can bring in future revenues?

M1 can take a lesson from SingTel, which provides its HD set-top boxes for free as long as customers subscribe to a minimum of about S$16 a month. Like SingTel a few years ago, M1 is a new kid on the block that needs to get boxes into homes, and that S$5 to S$12 a month is going to be a major roadblock. It should at least offer an option to waive set-top box charges once a user hits a minimum monthly charge, as in SingTel’s case.

If nothing else, the hope is that M1 will be the first to seriously test the content-sharing rules that the MDA has put out and attracted so much controversy from incumbents StarHub and SingTel, as well as industry lobby groups like Casbaa, this year.

Sure, M1 will be doing its bid to boast of a “quad-play” suite of services that include mobile, home broadband, residential voice and pay-TV. But for consumers, including non-M1 customers, the new entrant’s success or failure in pay-TV could well be a test of how competitive Singapore’s shifting telecom and content market can be.

If M1 buggers out as MDA continues to mull over the content sharing deals come next year, then it’s very likely SingTel and StarHub will remain the dominant forces, safely protected by their exclusive pay-TV deals, new next-gen broadband network or no. If M1 succeeds in landing key content like football on its network, consumers can expect telcos to fight it out harder for their dollar in the years ahead.

Singapore football fans are finally getting all the live matches for World Cup 2010, after the country almost ended up as one of a handful that could not reach a deal with FIFA to broadcast the world’s biggest football show.

In the end, StarHub and StarHub are said to have ironed out a deal that will cost them about US$15 million (S$21 million), which is half the S$40 million asking price that had been reported earlier.

Should football fans rejoice? Let’s do the sums.

For the 2006 World Cup, StarHub is said to have paid US$5 million for the rights for the month-long event. Its asking price to subscribers then: S$15 for early-bird sign-ons and S$25 subsequently.

This time round, would viewers have to pay more? It looks certain, though StarHub will probably not heap the entire 3x increase in its costs directly on viewers.

By most measures, S$60 to S$100 to watch 64 matches in a World Cup where Singapore is not even part of is a bit rich for most fans, bar of course, the very rich ones.

That’s also considering that the final few matches – the semi-finals, third-place play-off and final – should be shown on Mediacorp’s free-to-air channels, if FIFA lives up to its promise of bringing football to the masses.

Should this be hailed as a triumph for content sharing in Singapore? I’d say a qualified “yes”.

If StarHub and SingTel had gone in with competitive bids, instead of a joint one, then surely, we’d be looking at even higher fees to be paid to Football Media Services (FMS), the Asian representatives of FIFA for World Cup 2010.

Singapore telcos were being asked to pay more – at the highest dollar per capita – simply because the earlier SingTel-StarHub bidding war for Barclays Premier League rights had yielded such fat profits for the rights owners.

The Singapore market suddenly looked like a succulent chunk of meat to content owners – they believed they could ask for crazy prices because of the distorted and unhealthy type of competition going on here.

Now, none of this would have happened had the pay-TV market been regulated with a more enlightened approach. Up until last month, the authorities had simply shrugged shoulders and said the market would correct itself.

Well, it had not. Indeed, it had become worse, until urgent action from the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts to reverse course and start ruling out exclusive pay-TV deals here.

So there is good news for football fans and indeed pay-TV users in Singapore.

This lower World Cup bid, though still high by many measures, has at least shown that the Singapore market, and by extension, its viewers, are not absolute suckers for content owners to rip off.

After all these years, and facing the wrath of football fans deprived of live World Cup matches, Singapore’s media regulators finally decided a fortnight ago to rule out exclusive pay-TV content henceforth and bring an end to one of their most costly mistakes of late.

As Acting Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts (MICA), Lui Tuck Yew, told Parliament two weeks ago, the authorities will now force pay-TV operators – mainly StarHub and SingTel now – to share their content.

This brings an end to costly bidding exercises that have made it expensive for football fans to watch exclusive programmes like live Barclays Premier League (BPL) matches.

While a positive move, the question remains if this has come too late, and if the authorities, mainly the Media Development Authority (MDA), an agency within MICA, had allowed such a distorted market to develop over the years.

For more than seven years, the MDA had simply washed its hands of the market, choosing in 2006, and later in 2007, to say that there were no problems with the market, even when SingTel and Starhub were paying hundreds of millions of Singapore dollars for exclusive BPL content, making the country one of the costliest markets in terms of dollars per capita.

The final straw came in the past two months, when it was revealed that Fifa, the rights holders for the World Cup 2010 in June, had demanded a ridiculously high fee that StarHub and SingTel simply refused to pay.

To think it had taken the farce of Singapore being one of a handful of countries to miss out on live World Cup matches to get the Government to act.

And for two market rivals – SingTel and StarHub – to put aside differences to table a joint bid for the World Cup, which was rejected by a greedy Fifa keen to exploit Singapore’s willingness to pay for exclusive content, to move this impossibly bad situation for Singapore’s pay-TV viewers.

Might things have been different had the authorities acted all these years, instead of telling people nothing can be done, and that rights holders will just “leave Singapore” if the authorities had forced the sharing of content?

Well, the answer is clear now. That official line, held for years by MDA, is now officially rubbish, after Minister Lui finally admitted two weeks ago that the current situation is a “market failure that is evident”. Yet, as he delivered the changes, he must have also wondered if they have come too late.

Firstly, if he had ruled on this just months before the current BPL bids were accepted, SingTel would not have paid excessive amounts for the upcoming three seasons. Users would not have to worry about getting a second set-top box to watch different programmes on the telly.

Secondly, the ruling, which only applies now, may or may not be enough to bring the World Cup to Singapore. Fifa is well prepared to play hardball and stick to its asking price, which has been said to be above a stratospheric S$40 million.

To this, I say football fans will just have to treat this entire episode as a harsh lesson in pay-TV economics.

That the authorities have so dramatically reacted to a potential loss of World Cup rights will not bring instant results when it comes to the screening of content that is in hot demand.

Sports rights owners, say, the Football Association Premier League (FA PL) in Britain, have always played hardball when it comes to exclusive rights. And they might well say “forget Singapore” if the authorities here insist on sharing content.

To which, I say, you, the football fan, just have to start voting with your wallet. So far, you have said no to the damaging exclusive content deals that have made everything expensive and inconvenient for pay-TV viewers. And finally, the authorities have acted in response.

Should content owners, in the form of Fifa or FA PL or anyone else, try to force the issue in future, couch potatoes would just have to learn to say no, offering a big thumbs-down to bad deals.

I’m prepared not to watch the World Cup. If I have to watch the final, I might just drive to Malaysia to watch it. Football fans here, I imagine, would find this tough at first, but realise that it’s the only way forward in the long term.

From here, let’s see where this new ruling brings us.

If done right, with the next-gen broadband network up in Singapore from this year, the new content-sharing rules could mean that content is piped through one network, over one set-top box, and viewers will be able to choose – at their convenience – what pay-TV programmes they want, at a time they choose.

That will be progress indeed.

Often a tolerant lot, Singaporeans can accept a lot of things – slow broadband speeds, lack of full number portability (until last year) and even not being able to choose their government (in some wards).

But one thing they can’t stand, joked a journalist pal of mine, is to have their weekend football fix taken away. Should that happen, he declared, there’d be a “RIOOOOT!”

That perhaps explains why the Singapore media authorities did a stunning U-turn yesterday, saying that they might just  make SingTel share its fresh-in-the-bag Barclays Premier League rights with StarHub come next year.

Acting Minister for Information, Communication and the Arts Lui Tuck Yew, even went so far as to say the government was considering an universal pay-TV set-top box for Singapore homes, so that people don’t have to get two set-top boxes to watch BPL on SingTel and other popular channels that StarHub carries.

This, of course, comes after intense lobbying by StarHub, which just last month lost the exclusive BPL rights for the upcoming three seasons to SingTel.

Through ads in the newspapers, the “green” telco has been stoking up the fires among its unhappy subscribers, who suddenly realise they have to keep a StarHub set-top box to watch their favourite National Geographic documentaries yet sign up for a separate SingTel mio TV box to get their football fix.

But I don’t blame StarHub, or indeed SingTel, which is unfairly facing the unhappiness of football fans who see it as the party responsible for raising the bidding price for the exclusive content (SingTel has not raised prices for football channels, despite reportedly paying more for the rights).

The people I do want to question are the government media regulators: what on earth are you doing?

Weeks after the exclusive rights are bid for and awarded to SingTel, they are attempting a retro-active ruling on how things should be. This is like telling contestants to re-run a 100-metre race after the winner has been declared – because the umpires have changed their minds on the rules.

Don’t get me wrong. As a consumer, I’m for a single set-top box for watching everything on TV. I’m for content-sharing, like the pay-TV operators in Australia have agreed, to avoid pushing up exclusive content prices in future.

But what is happening now reeks of indecisiveness. For the authorities, which have done nothing against exclusive pay-TV content all these years since SingTel entered the market, to suddenly declare a change of rules is akin to flip-flop decision-making.

The MDA (Media Development Authority), an agency within MICA, has for years known the problem of pay-TV exclusivity.

In surveys it conducted and in plain public feedback, it was told about the unhealthy competition that existed in Singapore’s small market. It did nothing in the previous round of spiralling BPL bids in late 2006. Again, it did nothing in the last round in late September.

This despite knowing that telecom operators – SingTel and StarHub in Singapore – were using their profits in the “fatter” broadband and mobile markets to fund costly bids in the hardly-profitable pay-TV content market, so that they could sell a “triple play” bundle of service.

This,  in itself, already showed how distorted the market was, and was reason enough for the regulators to step in.

But no, the MDA insisted it would leave things to the free market, however distorted it was. It said it would let subscribers choose with their wallets, based on their ability to swallow the increasing costs of getting their football fix.

And so, after all the complaining and unhappiness from the public, SingTel went ahead and won the bid, and tried its best to grab some subscribers with a new, low-cost football deal for next year – the first time prices had not increased after a renewal of rights.

Yet, now, after all that is said and done, the authorities are doing a dramatic U-turn.

I am a StarHub Hubbing customer – my bills go up to $400 a month for broadband, mobile and TV – but I am feeling a deep sense of injustice for SingTel and indeed a worrying sense of uncertainty for any other telco here.

Why should the rules be changed only after StarHub loses its most important channels? Were the authorities listening when SingTel cajoled, complained and finally cursed as it entered the pay-TV market in 2007, having failed to get MDA to rule out exclusive channels in a newly-liberalised market?

Were they listening when market watchers told them how unrealistic it was to regulate an increasingly converged industry – broadband, mobile and pay-TV – with two regulators (MDA for pay-TV and the Infocomm Development Authority for broadband and mobile)?

If the authorities are to change their minds so easily, how should market players plan their investments in future? Would any foreign telco be confident in investing here in such a climate?

If SingTel had known that it would not have exclusive rights to the BPL channels – after StarHub had enjoyed them for years – would it have sunk in all that money to bid in the first place? How do their executives answer to shareholders now?

The truth is, if the regulators had listened to the market and to the customers all along, they would not find themselves in the current dilemma.

Now, what they can – and must – do if they are to go ahead with this content-sharing deal, is to apply the rule evenly. Don’t let StarHub keep all its exclusive programmes, which range from CBeebees to NatGeo. Let SingTel subscribers have the popular channels too.

And this universal set-top box: unless Singapore gets the Next-gen National Broadband Network (NGNBN) up fast enough to connect it to, forget about this fantasy piece of equipment.

StarHub uses a cable plant to send its TV signals to homes; SingTel uses a totally different ADSL (asymmetric digital subscriber line) broadband network – you might just get two separate set-top boxes more cheaply than to specially make one for the Singapore market.

Maybe it’s the rumblings on the ground.

Maybe it’s StarHub playing the public card of late – appealing to the public, and more likely, its pay-TV subscibers, in full-page newspaper ads to group together and “share their views” on SingTel’s EPL (English Premier League) win for the next three seasons.

Whatever the reason, the red camp has today come up with prices to tune in to live EPL matches from next year, and it has kept to its promise of not asking for more cash.

In fact, it has come up with a pretty sweet deal, which has left me looking for a catch to. For S$23 a month, you get to tune in to the live matches on the broadband TV network. Add S$2 more, and you get ESPN and StarSports thrown in. Subscribe for a year, and the Champions League and Europa League are in for free as well.

Rental fees for the set-top box are included. And you don’t have to subscribe to a basic tier of services, which was what I was expecting should StarHub have won.

The only downside I can think of now is the $10-a-month SingTel phone line rental fee, for people like me who use a free phone line from StarHub and have junked SingTel’s long ago. You’ll need a phone line to hook up to a SingTel ADSL modem to hook up a mio TV set-top box.

Even so, SingTel Singapore CEO Allen Lew told Techgoondu this afternoon that there would be:

1) bundle packages for those to spend above a yet undisclosed amount on SingTel broadband and mobile services
2) no need to subscribe to a phone line should your home be wired up to the next-gen broadband network reaching homes next year.

So, it seems like “relatively” good news for consumers. For folks like me, the relative “low cost” of EPL opens up the possibility of keeping my StarHub set-top box for my wife in the bedroom, while getting SingTel for EPL in the living room.

If I keep my StarHub basic package – keeping my favourite National Geographic and Discovery channels – I pay, say, about S$25 to S$30 a month. Add another, say, S$25 on a SingTel EPL package, and I still only spend S$48 to S$53 a month. That’s lower than the S$60+ a month I spend now, which, to be fair, includes stuff like HD channels as well.

So, the biggest problem now is having to squeeze that SingTel HD box and, unfortunately, an ugly ADSL modem into my new TV cabinet.

Asked about sharing EPL content with StarHub, Mr Lew ruled it out. He also said he had not been directly approached by StarHub to do so.

Like you, I’m also scratching my head a little, wondering how SingTel is pulling this off without losing money and angering shareholders.

After all, it is said to have paid more than the US$150 million StarHub paid the last time round for exclusive EPL rights – and StarHub barely makes money from its pay-TV operations.

Still, there may be a few reasons why SingTel is doing this:

1) For the long haul
It looks very likely that it wants to win over users – and content owners – for the long haul. It’s showing its deep pockets here, and it wants to slowly persuade StarHub Hubbing users like me to switch service-by-service – starting from pay-TV – to the red camp.

Don’t forget StarHub didn’t build up its triple-play base overnight. Thus, SingTel maybe being patient in building its own triple-play base, as we approach the launch of a next-gen broadband network that will make things very competitive.

2) To get the volume
Allen Lew says SingTel is confident of pulling in people who were put off by having to subscribe to StarHub’s basic pay-TV package just to watch the EPL. Fair enough, though I question if this is a sizeable crowd. SingTel says it will get more than the estimated 250,000 to 300,000 that StarHub has for its sports programmes – we shall see.

3) More multimedia content
According to Mr Lew, SingTel wants to make use of its EPL content for more ‘Web-based multimedia’ in future. He is tight-lipped about what this is exactly, though you only have to look at InSing, for example, to see where SingTel is trying to go with content in future.

Some of this “repurposed” EPL content, says Mr Lew, will be pay-content, while some will be free. We’ll have to see what the content is. StarHub, by the way, gives EPL subscribers free access on the mobile and PC, so I don’t expect SingTel to make people pay for these.

To be honest, I really don’t see how SingTel can make money by simply asking people to pay S$23 a month. I don’t care as a consumer, of course. But as the EPL battle draws to a close this time round, it’d be interesting to find out how the telecom market shapes up with this turn of events.

For consumers, the most important thing out of this unpopular battle paid through subscribers’ pockets, is the price plans – SingTel has unveiled a nice surprise thus far.

First, it was on. Then, we’re not so sure.

Without the protagonists even speaking a word about it, the market has been filled with talk of a possible SingTel-StarHub joint bid for the upcoming three seasons of exclusive Barclays Premier League (BPL) content.

Yet, after days of drama, consumers are still no clearer on whether they will 1) have to pay more because of the higher bids predicted 2) buy two set-top boxes to watch different matches should the bids be split.

Things all started last week, after Deutsche Bank put out a research report, predicting that Singapore’s two big telcos, which respectively run a cable TV network and an IPTV network, may table a joint bid for the BPL matches in an attempt to prevent an unpopular escalation of costs.

How Deutsche Bank came to those conclusions it did not clearly say. It merely predicted that this was how the market would pan out, especially given the unhappiness among consumers about the unhealthy competition in the marketplace.

This was followed by remarks by a government consultation group this week, which recommended that SingTel and StarHub cooperate rather than bid up the prices for the upcoming BPL content.

The Programme Advisory Committee for English Programmes (PACE), which gives feedback to the Singapore government, says it was concerned that the competition was bad for consumers. Well, that’s not really news, since we have been on that for three years now.

Then, yet another report, taking the opposite stand, came from Goldman Sachs yesterday. It argued that the likelihood of such a joint bid was “wishful thinking”, as the BPL content owners would simply reject it.

So, where is everything going with all the speculation? Nobody knows, except that the results will be out in the next few months, as they did in late 2006 in the last round of bidding.

Most notable during all this debate, however, is the media regulator, the Media Development Authority’s (MDA) silence. It has merely said it has been consulting experts on the issue, but added little more.

As before, it is leaving things to market forces. Now, look what is happening. Fattened by their profits from mobile and broadband services, SingTel and StarHub are distorting the market by possibly raising their bids from the last round’s estimated US$150 million to as much as US$400 million.

Most market watchers who believe that MDA cannot/should not do anything should consider this:

1. Content reselling has been ongoing in Australia, where Foxtel resells its BPL channels to Optus, after similar unhealthy bidding exercises. The content owners, the FA PL (Football Association Premier League), have accepted the practice.

2. The argument that BPL content is a luxury, and rightly commands the highest prices, is right as long as the market is not distorted. Regulators have to step in when the market cannot correct itself and rebalance.

Is there nothing to be done with spiralling BPL prices? Here are some ideas:

1. MDA to mandate a price ceiling for sports or BPL programmes
Essentially, this limits how much StarHub and SingTel can bid. No, this does not stop them from drawing from earnings from other profitable sectors to bid, but at least it prevents users from paying through the nose. This way, the content owners keep their exclusive content deals, so MDA keeps them happy while actually doing something to correct the market for consumers.

2. MDA to bite the bullet and force a wholesale deal
This is what football fans want, but MDA is probably not sure if it wants to risk having the BPL folks walk away from Singapore (I don’t think they will because they want money – it’s just the amount). This works like Australia, where StarHub or SingTel will resell the content it purchases from the FA PL.

3. A joint bid by SingTel and StarHub
This may be unlikely for two reasons. One, the two can’t see eye-to-eye. Two, BPL would say no, especially if this is done without some strong-arming from MDA. However, if against the odds, SingTel and StarHub form a joint venture and bid for the content, what happens? Or if both SingTel and StarHub lose in a joint-bid, does that mean ESPN Starsports can win at a lower cost, and therefore benefit viewers?

4. Football fans to simply say no
I’ve said it before. This is probably the surest way that things will change. While I love watching Wayne Rooney and Manchester United every weekend, there is a limit to the money and hassle I wish to pay. There is also the idea of fairness.

Lest the FA PL forgets, it owes a lot of its clout and world-beating popularity to the spread of live TV around the world, particularly in Asia.

So, for these folks to say: “BPL’s a luxury, take it or leave it” to fans who basically made the league the most popular in the world is, frankly, deserving of a smack in the face – or rather, a call to your pay-TV operator to cancel the channel.

If the cost is too much, I’m cutting my sports subscription and going to a pub with friends to only watch important matches, which was the way things used to be years ago.

But before that happens, I’d like the regulator to do more for consumers than what it has done now, which is simply standing on the sidelines, hoping for the spectacle to play out quietly.

I decided to make a U-turn and head for Shaw Centre, my “secret” car park with plenty of lots whenever I wanted to avoid the crazy car park queues at Suntec, Millenia and Marina.

To my horror, the car park at Shaw was full and I had no choice but to make another run – this time to Raffles City. Phew, there were still 40 or so lots left although they were filling up quickly as well. Above is the car park sign board just outside Suntec City at about 2.15pm yesterday as I was going to Comex.


Check out the peeps getting up the escalator on level 1.

The entrance to level 2 of Comex. The entire ballroom and function rooms at level 2 were occupied by SingTel and Samsung. SingTel was out for the kill and appears to have the best freebies of the three telcos at Comex.

The red camp was throwing in a free Acer Aspire One (the Windows version) mini laptop for anyone signing up for its 8 Mbps plan at S$55 per month with a 2-year contract and a Lenovo G230 for those going for a 30-month S$79.95 per month 10Mbps deal.

SIngTel also put up attractive posters of Prison Break, Grey’s Anatomy and other hit US TV series which will soon be available on its new Season Pass video-on-demand channels which offer the episodes just 24 hours after they are screened in the US.

To give customers a taste of the channels, SingTel threw in free mio TV installation, set-top box and one free Season Pass title for all who subscribed to a broadband package.

SingTel also slashed its mobile broadband 3G/3.5G rates by half with a 1 Mbps plan costing only S$11.21 per month (I think it’s the cheapest now) if you sign-up for a year’s contract. Note however, that SingTel still offers the 50GB cap and not unlimited use like StarHub and M1.

Here’s the pix of the crowd waiting for their Q numbers to be called at the SingTel broadband booth. The SIngTel area was the most crowded of the three telcos and at 2-3pm, there was a sizeable crowd which I had to weave my way through.

SingTel brought in the cavalry too, with the showcase of its F1 race car, but nobody seemed keen and was too busy sussing out the deals.

Just outside SIngTel’s show area was an even bigger one occupied by Samsung who was peddling everything they had in full force – TVs, monitors, printers, MP3 players and even washing machines.

The TV wall featured Samsung series 4, 5 and 6 TVs together. What is interesting is Samsung did not display the same content for its series 4 (HD-Ready) units (the ones on the far right column) compared to the Full HD series 5 and 6 units (middle and left columns respectively).

It was showing HD5 on th series 4 panels and a looping collection of pre-recorded HD footage – which includes games, documentaries and movies – on the series 5 and 6.

This made the series 5 and 6 look a lot better compared to the HD5 footage which was showing at standard def anyway at that time. You really cannot tell the difference between HD-Ready and Full HD at anything less than 46-inch and only barely at 46-inch. So save your money.

Level 3 was StarHub and Sony. StarHub looked like it occupied a lot more exhibition space than SIngTel, but the crowds were definitely smaller at green camp. I wasn’t complaining though since I don’t like squuezing through warm bodies filled with perspiration.

Here’s the registration booth at StarHub – definitely less people compared to the red camp. But maybe it was because it was already pass 3pm and the lunch crowd had gone back to work.

StarHub did not have free laptops to offer and its best premium is probably the Samsung flash memory camcorder VP-MX10A for its S$59.92 per month 8Mbps broadband line which includes a 1Mbps mobile broadband package as well.

StarHub’s strategy appears to be going for bundled deals instead of using its traditional end-of-year fabulous premiums strategy (I own two free HP laptops from SCV contracts). StarHub’s strategy hasn’t really changed in that sense, but SingTel has become a lot more aggressive in courting new customers by throwing in good premiums for sign-ups in the middle of the year.

What was really intresting however is the new video-on-demand channels which StarHub has just launched recently. For the longest time, StarHub has only been able to offer ‘near demand:” channels which is channels which screen movies at multiple fixed times a day.

The problem with this system is that if the show has already started, you have to wait for the next screening, although StarHub tries to resolve this issue by having multiple channels of the same show running simultaneously.

The reason StarHub could not offer VOD in the past is because of what I suspect is the limitation of cable broadcast technology. And the reason why StarHub can now offer real VOD is because, well, it’s using the Internet to deliver VOD.

How do I know this? Well I found out that my StarHub HD set top box cannot get the new StarHub  VOD channels and I had to switch to the Hubstation box (which is only standard definition) to get VOD. The Hubstation box is specifically needed (the normal digital cable SD box wont do too) because it has a built-in cable modem which can therefore stream the VOD channels.

The HD box does not have a built-in modem so if you are a pure StarHub cable TV subscriber you have to choose between HD channels and the new VOD channels.

However, you can plug-in an external cable modem to the HD set-top box but you need to have a separate StarHub broadband subscription for this.

For me, since I am a “triple hubber” with mobile, broadband and TV under StarHub, this is not a real problem but if only want cable TV, you are stuck.

SingTel’s mioTV, in comparison, also needs a modem and a set-top box to get the channels but SingTel does not require that you must have a separate broadband subscription. Of course this anomaly can be solved when StarHUb launches a HD Hubstation box.

Sony was also out in full force on level 3 with everything from TVs to VAIO laptops to camcorders.