High Speed Broadband Seen As Key Enabler for Malaysian’s Tranformation

NAM NEWS NETWORK
Mar 25th, 2010

KUALA LUMPUR, March 25 (NNN-BERNAMA) -- Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak says emphasis must be given to develop world class infrastructure in an effort to transform Malaysia into a developed and high-income country and describes high-speed broadband (HSBB) as a key enabler to change Malaysia from a medium-income to a high-income country.

"Definitely, HSBB will make Malaysia a 21st Century nation," he said when launching the country's HSBB service along with the National Broadband Intiative (NBI) here Wednesday night.

He said the HSSB service -- which provides a minimum speed of 10 Megabits per second (Mbps) -- would have a huge impact in stimulating the economy, enhancing competitiveness, reinforcing local and foreign investors' confidence, enriching creative and innovative minds, and as a conduit to disseminate information and knowledge to the people.

Image for illustration purpose only (courtesy of Google)

"It cannot be denied that HSSB will make our lifestyle more sophisticated, making it easier for us to communicate with one another. For example, I had been using this service when I invited 300 of my Facebook friends to have tea with me recently," he added.

"From 138,000 who have registered as my Facebook friends, I invited 300 of them for a tea reception. I feel this is my way of communicating with the people directly."

Najib said the government decided to launch a public and private partnership (PPP) with an allocation of 2.4 billion Ringgit (one USD = about 3.3 Ringgit) in three and half years while Telekom Malaysia, the country's dominant fixed-line and Internet service provider, would provide 8.9 billion Ringgit more over 10 years.

He said HSBB should be understood and embraced as it would benefit the country, economy, competitiveness and individuals.

"Besides ensuring quality inventory and services, we must tell the people that this is for their benefit. I hope the question of public education will also be tackled to ensure that the demand for high-speed broadband will increase," he said.

In driving the social and economic transformation towards achieving the high-income nation objective, Najib announced six national broadband initiatives.

First, 246 community broadband centres will be set up for 615,000 people at a cost of 60 million Ringgit. Secondly, People's Internet Centres will be set up at 138 Information Department premises nationwide to benefit 400,000 users.

Thirdly, e-kiosks will be provided at community centres and Mukim (sub-district) offices in 1,100 mukim nationwide at a cost of 4.0 million Ringgit.

Fourthly, a total of 873 telecommunication towers will be built, more than half of them in the two eastern Malaysian states of Sabah and Sarawak on the island of Borneo.

Fifthly, 1.0 billion Ringgit will be allocated from the Universal Service Provision (UPS) Fund, with the agreement of all service providers who contribute to it, to provide laptops to 100,000 needy students nationwide.

Sixthly, Telekom Malaysia agrees to reduce its broadband package bundled with netbooks from 50 Ringgit to 38 Ringgit a month while in the USP-supported areas it would be further reduced to 20 Ringgit a month. — NNN-BERNAMA

Source: Brunei fm


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