Malaysia needs RM21.6 billion from now until 2023 to improve internet speeds

Malaysia’s Finance Minister, Lim Guan Eng, had shared that the National Fiberisation and Connectivity Plan (NFCP) will require an investment of RM21.6 billion between 2019 to 2023. The NFCP is an initiative led by the Ministry of Communications and Multimedia to improve broadband quality and coverage, reduce broadband price, enable internet access for all and to expand fibre networks.

According to the Finance Minister, a large portion of the investment will be funded by MCMC’s Universal Service Provision (USP) fund. He added that the plan will further improve internet speed in Malaysia and to make our economy ready for the implementation of 5G. Lim Guan Eng says that the government is organising several focus group discussions to obtain views and recommendations for the 2020 Budget which will be tabled on 11th October 2019.

He also mentioned that to support the digitalisation of the economy and wider adoption of Industry 4.0 technology, the government will be preparing to spend RM4.2 billion to provide high-speed fibre optic connectivity to schools and selected industrial zones.

The NFCP aims to achieve an average speed of 30Mbps in 98% of populated areas by 2023 and 100% availability of 500Mbps connectivity for premises in State Capital and selected high impact areas by 2021. It also targets 20% availability for premises in sub-urban and rural areas to get faster speeds up to 500Mbps by 2022. During the Budget 2019 announcement, the Government had allocated RM1 billion for the NFCP.

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