Ministry working on faster broadband speeds at affordable price

Datuk Seri Salleh Said Keruak says his ministry is looking at ways to upgrade Internet broadband services while ensuring its affordability. – The Malaysian Insider filepic, October 17, 2015.

The Communications and Multimedia Ministry is looking at ways to upgrade Internet broadband services in rural areas while ensuring it remains affordable, minister Datuk Seri Salleh Said Keruak said today.

"The government is working to upgrade Internet access for more people in the rural areas and not just in the urban area. We are not only concerned over the issue of Internet speed, which has become an issue of debate of late, but also its affordability," he said in a post on his blog.

"Once the infrastructure can cope with it we may consider changing the entry-level package to a higher speed without any substantial increase in cost to maintain affordability and at the same time offer a higher speed. My ministry is now looking into the details."

He said that the government wanted to ensure that at least 95% of Malaysians would have access to the Internet and 50% of those urban areas and 20% in the rural areas would have broadband speeds of 100Mbps by the year 2020.

"We are also looking at the issue of coverage to ensure that more people get access to the Internet. I have asked my ministry to put special emphasis and to focus on infrastructure development to expand the Internet penetration and coverage all over Malaysia.

"We do not want the Internet to be enjoyed only by people in the urban areas such as Kuala Lumpur and Penang but also by the communities in the interior and the islands of Sabah and Sarawak as well."

Salleh had courted criticism after he said 71% of Malaysian Internet users preferred the slower Streamyx broadband package that offers speeds of between 384kbps and 1Mbps.

He said even though higher broadband speeds were available, the majority of customers subscribed to the cheaper and slower packages.

"In Singapore and Thailand, the minimum speeds range between 4 and 5Mbps. In Malaysia it is only 384kbps. Of course we can also do this for Malaysia.

"We can increase the minimum Internet speed to 5Mbps and force Malaysians to buy this higher-speed package. But that would mean the cost would be higher as well and Internet usage will be available to only those who can afford to pay the higher cost," Salleh said.

In a second blog post today, Salleh also said that he had not meant Malaysians “preferred” or “liked” slower Internet speeds, and took his critics to task for quibbling over his choice of words.

“I was not using the word ‘prefer’ in the context of liking. I was referring to statistics where 71% subscribers choose the lower package over the others.

“Cost is certainly the main consideration here and Malaysians put cost as the prime consideration when choosing any service. If not then 71% would not be subscribing to this service.

“‘Prefer’ does not mean the liking of a lower Internet speed but about putting cost as the preference to speed,” he wrote.

- TMI