Excited, I suppose, because I will no longer have to wait and twiddle my thumbs for 60 seconds while waiting for something to download.

That’s how spoiled we have become – we who are now so used to getting everything in an instant that even instant noodles now feels like it takes ages to cook, especially if you watch the pot.

I am also excited at the thought that I will be able to watch any movie or television series, work and shop, without having to move from my couch, through one device.

It’ll be like turning on this giant jukebox and be able to play anything I want, whenever, immediately. Ask and it shall be streamed and it shall happen fast, my child.

Yet there’s a quiver of trepidation – can I cope with more information at faster speed coming at me? Is the human brain wired to handle so much information being bombared at it so fast? I am not sure.

I am talking about the paving of the way for Singapore’s new, ultra high-speed broadband network, which will be completed by 2012, a centerpiece of Singapore’s Intelligent Nation 2015 masterplan.

According to the company contracted to do the installation, OpenNet, 60% of Singapore’s residential and non-residential buildings are now installed with Singapore’s ultra-high-speed, fibre broadband network.

My apartment is included in that list, and I am blown away by the efficiency of the execution. A couple of months ago, I received a letter from OpenNet, asking me to go to a website and book an appointment for someone to come and install the cable in my apartment.

I was given a choice of dates and times. I was reminded of this appointment at least twice before it happened, via SMS.
On the date and time – as it turned out, I was out – I received a call from my housekeeper who told me the OpenNet man wanted to speak to me.

He very politely did not ask why I was not in but instead asked me where I would like the cable installed. Apparently, the first 15m of cable is free, extra you pay for.

We discussed a location. When I got home 20 minutes later, he was still there – a soft-spoken man who explained how this would work. He would have to drill a home, pull in the cable, drag the cable along my ceiling to the point near my television set.

He apologized for the noise in advance and for the fact that the cable casing would be visible. It took him less than an hour and when it was done, I could barely see the cable. He had done such a good job of hiding the casing.

So now I stand on the cusp of change. My home is wired for the next wave of the web.

OpenNet says the rollout is on schedule and is expected to achieve the target of 95% total coverage by middle of 2012. It says, “With fibre broadband services, consumers will experience dramatically better performance for typical internet activities such as web surfing, video streaming, social networking, file sharing and collaborative networking. More importantly, fibre services in homes will enable access to innovative suites of health, education and entertainment services that are likely to come on stream in the future.”

So what do you think? Exciting or terrifying?

PS After writing this, I then read about plans in South Korea to connect every home in the country to the Internet at one gigabit per second by the end of 2012. That’s 10 times faster now than current and more than 200 times as fast as the average household setup in the United States. Guess this will be the new yardstick by which a nation’s development status will be measured by  – the speed at which information can flow into our homes.