SINGAPORE--The city-state of Singapore is aiming to become one of the most connected countries in the world in 10 years. At CommunicAsia today, Singapore’s top communications official unveiled an information and communications technology master plan that aims to make broadband access, both wired and wireless, ubiquitous across the island and put a computer in the home of every school-aged child by 2015.

Singapore Minister of Information, Communications & The Arts Lee Boon Yang said the Singapore government is investing in a national infrastructure that will access speeds ranging from 100 Megabits per second to 1 Gigabit per second to every home, business and school across the island including the lesser-developed villages outside of Singapore’s city center. That wired fiber network will be complimented by a pervasive wireless network, offering cellular and broadband wireless service to every point on the island.

The object, Lee said was to change Singapore into a complete digital economy with a lifestyle and business base fed by high-bandwidth applications such as high-definition IPTV, video conferencing, digital learning in schools and telemedicine in hospitals. In addition, the program has the added goal of turning Singapore into a major IT and communications hub—a process the government has already encouraged—that will make information technology and telecom a prime driver of tiny country’s economy, generating $60 billion in exports a year and creating 80,000 new high-tech jobs, Lee said.

“We will offer broadband connectivity anywhere, anytime and on any device,” Lee said.

The Singapore government has received 12 proposals for the national wireless broadband network and 33 proposals for the national wired network, from telco carriers and vendors both local and international and involving multiple technologies. The wireless proposals all involve Wi-Fi blanketing downtown Singapore, major shopping and business centers and the village central business units, while proposing WiMAX and broadband cellular technologies to fill the gaps in between, Lee said. Some of the proposals even suggest offering free wireless access to the entire population at speeds below 512 kb/s and charging only for speeds in excess of 1 Mb/s. Lee said Singapore would announce the winning bidder in September and begin rolling out the first networks in December.

The wired broadband network isn’t as far along as the government as has only called for conceptual proposals so far. Lee said the Singapore government hopes to enter into partnerships with private operators to build, own and operate the network. It expects the network will be completed by 2012.