The plan is to roll out wireless Internet access for anyone in the country who wants it. And it will start at the nation’s IT capital, Cyberjaya.
The country is dotted with hotspots where Internet users can congregate and connect wirelessly but this system, known as WiFi (Wireless Fidelity), has a major limitation — its short range.
That’s a mere 100m or less, depending on line-of-sight between user and base station.
There’s a better system that will provide wider coverage, and that’s WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access). A single WiMAX base station will cover a 10km radius.
Multimedia Super Corridor Malaysia (MSC) caretaker Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) signed an agreement on Tuesday with US-based Air Broadband Communications Inc.
Under the agreement, Air Broadband will lay out WiMAX infrastructure to cover Cyberjaya. This will be a pilot project and is expected to begin within the next three to six months, said Kenneth Kang Ki Bong, president of Air Broadband.
The US company is applying for MSC-status, and has appointed MDeC subsidiary MSC Management Services Sdn Bhd to distribute WiMAX technology in Malaysia and other countries, including Brunei and Indonesia.
Deputy Minister of Energy, Water and Communications Datuk Shaziman Abu Mansor said the Government hopes that the laying out of the WiMAX infrastructure will help improve the uptake of broadband access here which is currently less than 1% of the population.
He said WiMAX could also help bring broadband Internet to the rural areas.
Shaziman said that the Ministry also plans to amend the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 to simplify the roll-out of broadband to rural areas because this will likely narrow the so called “digital divide” of technology between urbanites and the rural folk.
“We want the amendment so that we will be able to use Universal Service Provision (USP) funding to subsidise the roll-out of broadband in the rural areas,” he said.
The USP programme is aimed at providing telecommunications services to unserved and underserved areas and communities in the country.
No time frame has been set for the amendment but the Ministry envisages that it would be completed by year end. -theStar
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