Thursday November 16, 2006
Broadening broadband
Broadband Internet access is going mainstream in Malaysia, and there are now around 700,000 consumer broadband subscribers. New companies have entered the market to capitalise on this demand, and also to challenge TM Net’s dominance in home broadband.
This issue, CHAN LEE MENG provides an update of the current state of consumer broadband here, including the major players and the technologies being deployed.
Concerned about the slow pace of broadband growth, the Government unveiled various initiatives to increase broadband usage, starting in 2004.
Among the significant steps, the Government assigned radio spectrum to certain companies to provide wireless Internet services.
Earlier this year, the Government ordered incumbent TM (Telekom Malaysia) to unbundle the local loop, that is, to make it accessible to competitors.
The "last mile" or "local loop" is the connection from a telephone company’s exchange point to its fixed-line customers.
In Malaysia, practically all "last mile" connections are owned by TM, and this is a sore point with rival telcos and corporations that want to provide broadband access through fixed lines.
In addition, the Government also asked TM to improve its Internet services, reduce prices, accelerate rollouts and expand broadband coverage.
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By the end of last year, the number of broadband subscribers in Malaysia had passed the half-million mark, and by the end of June this year, the figure had ballooned to about 653,000 – a clear indication of the pent-up demand for faster Internet access.
While this is healthy growth, analysts and local Net users say Malaysia is falling behind other countries when it comes to broadband deployment, especially when measured in terms of broadband penetration.
As of June this year, Malaysia’s broadband penetration rate was a mere 9.1% for households, and just 2.5% of the population, according to the MCMC (Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission).
Compare this to Singapore’s household broadband penetration, which is 57.4%, according to its government statistics.
Or take the case of South Korea, where an astounding 85.1% of all households subscribe to broadband, according to Optimisation LLC, a web performance and Internet marketing firm.
Still needs improvements
Now that a larger segment of society has experienced broadband, attention is shifting from merely obtaining broadband to ensuring quality of service.
Broadband customers in Malaysia are a dissatisfied lot in general, judging from the numerous e-mail messages, phone calls, faxes and letters we’ve received at In.Tech, not to mention the many postings on The Star’s Citizen’s Blog (
http://blog.thestar.com.my).
Common complaints about broadband include slow download speeds, difficulty in getting a connection, disconnections and sometimes, outages which can last for days.
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In October, Dr Lim said the Government does not want broadband service providers to shortchange the public.
"If you (service providers) tell the people that you can deliver one megabit per second (Mbps) speed but provide only 128Kbps speed all the time, then you are leading the public astray.
"The pricing should be based on what is delivered and not the best effort by the service providers," he said.
Slipping down
One group of users, led by web design consultant Josh Lim has gone as far as to start a website called RedesignMalaysia (
www.redesignmalaysia.com) which is aimed at improving broadband services from ISPs and to increase competition by providing resources, comparisons and consumer feedback.
Josh said he welcomes the increased competition from new broadband providers, but worries that broadband progress in Malaysia has not kept up with other countries.
He cited a recent BBC report which noted that as late as 2002, it was easier to get high-speed Internet connections in Kuala Lumpur than in most of London.
"However, we have slipped considerably, and now even our Singaporean neighbours have broadband at more than four times the speed and costing four times less, after currency conversion," Josh claimed.
Official initiative
On its part, the Government is taking steps to ensure Malaysia will not be outpaced by the broadband and ICT (information and communications technology) developments of other countries in this region.
Among the key steps is MyICMS 886, a five-year blueprint beginning this year aimed at promoting the growth of the local ICT industry (see link below).
"High-speed broadband, which a few years ago was considered a luxury is today a necessary part of the industrial, commercial and lifestyle landscapes." Dr Lim said in the forward section of the MyICMS 886 plan.
The Government has also pledged to further increase access to ICT facilities for the rural population by further expanding the Universal Service Provision (USP) Fund to include broadband infrastructure development in rural areas.
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