LAST week, the Assistant Minister of Sabah State on Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Datuk Seri Dr Ruddy Awah highlighted that Internet services in urban area of Sabah were just as bad as in rural areas.
Ruddy mentioned urban people in Sabah did not experience the speeds as advertised by telecommunication companies (telcos). Not only Sabahans but majority of Malaysians will agree with the Sabah politician that telco services are not on par with the price.
Since 1980s, Malaysian telecommunication industry landscape had evolved from Government owned Single Utility Operator (SUO) into Multi Utility Operators (MUO) under the then-prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad’s initiated National Privatisation Policy.
The “free-market” based MUO landscape failed to produce lower prices and higher quality because the consumers are not really “free” due to absence of consumer flexibility. The capitalist system is designed to minimise cost and maximise profits. Henceforth, privately owned telcos are reluctant to invest in expanding network coverage for rural people.
However, there are still many policy tools the Federal Government could utilise to decrease prices and increase quality of telecommunication services in Malaysia.
Improving consumer flexibility
The Government can stimulate intra-sector competitiveness improving consumer flexibility by abolishing minimum contract period and improving network portability.
Firstly, consumers cannot exit poor quality telcos because of minimum contract period up to 24 months. Minimum contract period motivates telcos to invest in marketing campaigns to attract new consumer. Minimum contract period disincentives investment for network upgrade to retain existing users.
Secondly, Putrajaya needs to abolish redundant rules to improve mobile network portability (MNP). MNP allow consumers to change mobile phone telcos without losing the phone number. However, 1.1 million MNP requests were rejected in 2019 because failure reply to SMS validation, incorrect SMS reply of MyKad number/format or overdue postpaid balance.
Currently, the telcos receiving consumers from different networks must conduct identification verification. Hence, compulsory validation through SMS requiring MyKad number is redundant. The receiving telco providers can collect the overdue amount from the postpaid consumers on behalf of the previous telco providers.
Thirdly, Malaysia must speed up introduction of fixed network portability (FNP) to allow business and homes to change broadband and fixed line provider without losing their fixed line number.
Countries with FNP experience at 23% reduction in broadband prices and up to four times higher penetration compared to countries without FNP.
Improve network quality
The Government should also conduct a nationwide cellular signal strength audit at human settlements. Subsequently, make it mandatory for telcos to deploy cellular boosters to plug the cellular signals gaps.
Cellular boosters are electronic devices that amplifies bidirectional cellular signal to improve call quality and Internet speed. They are faster, easier and cheaper to install than building new cellular towers.
Additionally, instruct Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB) to allow Third Party Access (TPA) to its fibre optics network. TNB owns 12,000km of fibre optics in Peninsula Malaysia that pass through many rural areas.
TNB’s fibre optics can deliver high speed fibre-internet and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) to rural people in the Peninsula. Telcos could also connect cellular towers to TNB’s fibre optics to improve cellular quality in rural areas. This is a much cheaper and faster option than building new fibre optics cable.
Also, Government-owned Telekom Malaysia (TM) can partner with Sarawak Energy Bhd (SEB) and Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd (SESB) to introduce broadband over powerline (BPL) for deep rural people, which is a method to carry internet over existing low-voltage powerlines.
Although BPL is inferior to fibre-internet, but it can serve as quick stopgap measures while building fibre-internet.
Borneo-Malaysia is geographical large, demographically small and topographically challenging requiring greater cost, effort and time to build fibre-internet. However, Sarawak and Sabah had achieved low-voltage (LV) rural electrification rate of 97% and 89% respectively.
BPL transports internet above 1Mega Hertz (MHz) will not interfere with electricity operation at 50Hertz. However, the degradation of Internet signal is higher in metal cables than fibre optics cables. Thus, signal repeaters are needed to ensure minimum quality standard.
Moving forward
Telecommunication is crucial physical infrastructures for social advancement in the modern society. Empirically, consumer flexibility will increase competition which reduces prices and increase quality.
Meanwhile, existing non-telecom infrastructure could be utilised to quickly improve network coverage and stability nationwide. – Feb 14, 2022
Sharan Raj is human rights activist, environmentalist and infrastructure policy analyst.
The views expressed are solely of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Focus Malaysia.
