FOUR groups are bidding for the contract to install the networking equipment that will direct the data traffic on Singapore's next generation broadband network.

At the close of the request for proposal on Friday morning, technology industry regulator Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA) received four bids - from SingTel, StarHub, MobileOne, and the IntelliNet consortium comprising Canada's Axia Netmedia and American networking giant Cisco Systems.

At an earlier pre-qualifying round that closed in April, 11 companies had tossed their hats into the ring, including telecoms giants like Britian's BT, Hongkong's City Telecom, Japan's Nippon Telegraph and Telephone West Corporation, Deutsche Telekom and Nokia Siemens Networks.

The eventual winner stands to get up to $250 million from the IDA, to help defray the cost of the rollout of a fibre optic network that will offer broadband speeds ten times faster than possible today.

The winner, called the 'opco' or operating company, will also be responsible for re-selling bandwidth to other businesses that can then provide value-added offerings such as high-speed Internet access or video conferencing solutions to homes and businesses using the new fibre-optic pipes currently being built by the OpenNet consortium.

Earlier this year, the OpenNet consortium comprising SingTel, Axia, Singapore Press Holdings and SP Telecommunications won the contract to build the underlying fibre-optic network.