Studio Press

The Energy, Water and Communications Minister says local telcos are holding back the Government’s efforts to improve telecommunication services in the country. Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik said the telcos have become monopolistic, which is also hindering the development of the nation’s information and communications technology (ICT) industry. “They see the pennies instead of the pounds, losing sight of the ‘pot of gold’ in the distance. They are interested only in making profits and protecting their investments, putting the future of the whole industry in jeopardy,” he said. He said government moves to enable domestic roaming for cellphone users, mobile-number portability, faster broadband speeds, and even the registration of prepaid cellular service users, have bogged down. Lim was speaking to reporters after launching the Pikom PC Fair 2006 here on Friday. According to him, Malaysia’s ICT industry, which is worth RM25bil, is obviously lagging far behind that of South Korea’s which is pegged at RM570bil. What many here fail to realise, he said, is that if the country’s ICT industry can be properly developed, it would contribute significantly to the Gross National Product. The Minister also touched on the recent government decision to award a second round of 3G (third-generation) mobile services licences – this time to MiTV Corp Sdn Bhd and TTDotcom Sdn Bhd (a unit of TIME dotCom). Some industry pundits argue that DiGi Telecommunications – the nation’s third cellular service provider after Maxis Communications and Celcom Malaysia – should have been given a 3G licence. Lim said it would not make sense to award the licence to another cellular service provider because this would not add value to the current 3G situation. “The main barrier to 3G adoption here is lack of content,” he said. “When we awarded the licences (the first time), we wanted to spur the growth of content creation for 3G and also that of the MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) industry.” That hasn’t happened in a big way. He said Maxis and Celcom, which benefited from the first round of 3G licences, seem unwilling to engage others to create the content or to open themselves to MVNOs. “They choose to hold everything for themselves,” he added. Local content developers meanwhile, he said, are getting a raw deal because the cellular service providers usually take 60% of the profit for content services, leaving the content creators with only 40%. “In China (for example), content developers get 90% of the profits,” Lim said, adding that the situation in this country must change if the content creation industry is to flourish.