Business Times reports that the Ministry of Information, Communications and Culture (KPKK) has setup what it calls a Broadband Action Brigade that will comprise of representatives from the ministry, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission and local telcos to identify and fix broadband problems faced by individual consumers or firms.
The report says the brigade is a part of the Government’s initiative to boost Internet accessibility in the country, enhance broadband speeds, cut subscription fees and meet the Government’s targeted 50%household broadband penetration by year end. That’s a mighty big ask for the three month old brigade that’s currently being headed by the ministry’s secretary-general Datuk Kamaruddin Siaraf. Right now the brigade meets every week to resolve broadband problems.
At the same time, KPKK has just launched a six-month long broadband awareness program to disseminate information on the benefits of broadband to the public, especially the rural areas to get more Malaysians to jump on the broadband bandwagon. We have to say, the program has a very catchy slogan though – “Get Broadband, Get Everything“.
On top of that Rais said that we can look forward to more affordable broadband fee as the the ministry is currently finalising its study on the subscription fees charged by various telcos to make them more affordable.
The report ended with Rais saying “It will be ready soon. It is not possible for us to standardise the charge by telcos, but we can make sure that it is affordable,”.
The PACIK is not going to like this one bit.
But seriously, ss cheap broadband really the answer to boost penetration? We’re still skeptical.
We tried searching online on how do we get in touch with this Broadband Brigade but we couldn’t find any leads. But if you have a complaint, you can try here and here.
