Just days after Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim called for the government to purchase forty Starlink Satellite broadband kits for schools and tertiary education institutions across Malaysia, the Minister of Communications and Digital of Malaysia Fahmi Fadzil has announced that Starlink has now received a Network Facility and Service Provider (NFP/NSP) licence.
In a series of tweets on his Twitter account, Fahmi Fadzil revealed that he had met with a representative from Starlink to pass them the aforementioned documents. According to Fahmi, this will allow Starlink to provide internet access to Malaysians, especially those living deep within the rural areas. In particular, he says that while 97% of populated areas already have internet access, geographical challenges provide logistical issues that hamper efforts to connect the remaining 3% to the internet.
Saya telah menyerahkan Lesen Pemberi Kemudahan dan Perkhidmatan Rangkaian kepada wakil Starlink baru-baru ini.
— Fahmi Fadzil 🇲🇾 (@fahmi_fadzil) July 20, 2023
Ini sekaligus membenarkan Starlink menyediakan perkhidmatan internet satelit di Malaysia terutamanya di kawasan pedalaman. pic.twitter.com/Ywtyug62P6
As such, Fahmi says that the government is ready to work with satellite internet providers such as Starlink in a bid to reach 100% internet access in all populated areas. He also adds that hopefully Starlink will prioritise schools and tertiary institutions first when they set up shop in Malaysia.
For a quick recap, Starlink is the satellite broadband service that’s operated by Elon Musk’s aerospace company SpaceX . It uses low earth orbit (LEO) satellites to offer high speed broadband at a lower latency compared to regular satellite broadband services, and is already available in over 40 countries with over a million active subscribers around the world.
Starlink however couldn’t operate in Malaysia until they had the necessary licenses from MCMC which, according to Fahmi’s tweets they now have. That being said, at time of writing their name still isn’t on the MCMC individual licenses register just yet. It’s also worth pointing out that neither Fahmi or the MCMC has revealed what conditions were set upon Starlink to operate in Malaysia; there are currently foreign investment restrictions on the percentage of shares a foreign entity can own as part of these licensing conditions. We’ve reached out to MCMC for more clarification on this, and will update once we get a response.
