What sort of services can be piped through the fine fibres of the Next Generation National Broadband Network ( Next Gen NBN )?

To give users a heads-up on what to expect, triple-play Next Generation services combining voice, data and video were showcased at the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore’s (IDA) booth at the recent imbX 2009 exhibition. The services ranged from education and entertainment to security and healthcare.

Mr Lester Leong from the Institute of High Performance Computing shows how the Remote Collaborative Workspace and the Smart Bed work together in the delivery of Home Telemedicine services.

One example of a Next Gen NBN service is a “next generation” closed circuit TV (CCTV). The high definition-ready CCTV cameras can pan, zoom in and zoom out with optical zoom for a clearer picture. Cameras can be controlled by a mouse or a joystick. Third-party software enables the equipment to monitor queues for crowd management services, or to monitor audiences so that advertisements can be tailored to suit viewers. Other streaming applications on display included multimedia kiosks, IPTV and other high-definition video services.

In the area of healthcare, home telemedicine could receive a boost. The Institute of High Performance Computing has come up with the Remote Collaborative Workspace, which allows general practitioners in their clinics to collaborate with specialists in a hospital on medical research. The doctors can also conduct remote consultations with patients in their homes.

Mr Eric Lam, Chief Executive Officer of Amdon Consulting, explaining the role of Next Gen NBN in delivering multi-player educational games.

Complementing the Remote Collaborative Workplace is the Smart Bed for Non-intrusive Respiratory Monitoring, a project by the Institute for Infocomm Research to demonstrate a fibre optic-based respiratory monitoring system which makes use of sensors positioned under the mattresses of those who suffer from sleep apnoea, for example, to track their breathing patterns as they sleep. The Next Gen NBN, when ready from as early as 2010, will allow sensors’ data to be sent to a remote pool of compute resources for analysis, making use of grid computing capabilities for faster turnaround of analysis and results.

Other on-demand, pay-as-you-use grid services which range from Infrastructure-as-a-Service and Storage-as-a-Service to Software-as-a-Service were also on display from Grid Service Providers such as Alatum and nGrid. Examples of Software-as-a-Service offerings include backup solutions, planning tools, financial management solutions, thin client computing and video streaming services, which users will be able to access over the broadband network. With grid services, applications and computing resources can be accessed from anywhere without compromising performance, and without needing to have them installed on the users’ PCs.

Mr Alan Woo, founder and Chief Technology Officer of grid service provider New Media Express, demonstrates the use of online storage services.

In education, multi-player educational games such as those created by Amdon Consulting need no longer be confined to the school network. The company has “transformed” geography and history lessons into real-time multiplayer LAN-based games aimed at complementing the core humanities syllabus in lower secondary schools. This will allow teachers to set students “homework” by telling them to play an educational game online at a certain hour, for instance, with the teacher overseeing their progress online from home.

Other educational services showcased at the IDA booth included an immersive learning lab by Playware Studios which featured a large multi-touch interactive display surface, as well as interactive educational trails created using a location-based authoring platform from Hewlett-Packard.

Another exciting development that will get a boost from the Next Gen NBN is Interactive IPTV, which allows users to access high-definition video and a host of highly-interactive third-party applications on their television sets. For example, users will be able to use a service portal on the TV to choose among various service providers or upgrade/ modify service plans that they may already have.

They can also cast their votes for reality shows and other interactive programmes using the television remote control instead of sending an SMS; download recipes while watching a cooking show and even order the ingredients through an instant downloading and ordering system; or  send an instant message to a friend or to recommend and share a video clip while watching it on television.