While these are draconian rules in most markets – but business as usual in Singapore – there is one reform that would delight any telco. That’s the criminal sanctions against building owners who refuse access to the NBN.
Such powers “will have the global carrier community (and other Singapore carriers) green with envy,” said telecoms lawyer Alasdair Grant, principal of AC Grant & Associates.
“Facilities access has been one of the great failings of telecom regulation over the past twenty years and the cause of untold economic cost,” he told telecomasia.net.
Grant says the amendments show the government plans “to keep its hands squarely on the controls to ensure that the NGN model and the market structures it supports play out as intended.”
“These powers and enforcement provisions – to enforce further separation, sanction the ownership and control of key operators, even to take over failing companies - are very activist and vest largely in the minister,” he said.
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