By Farhana Poniman
KUALA LUMPUR, April 12 (NNN-BERNAMA) – Telecommunications companies and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are working hard to reduce the strain that residential connections are experiencing due to the surge in internet demand from households during the Movement Control Order (MCO).
The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) said among measures that telco players have taken include releasing additional bandwidth capacity for both fixed and mobile, as well as, optimising the coverage network for mobile broadband.
“The increased broadband Internet traffic of 23.5 per cent between March 9-15 (one week before MCO) and March 16-22 (the first week of MCO) clearly shows an increase in demand.
“With the implementation of the MCO, everyone is currently adopting the Working From Home (WFH) concept which witnessed the shift of network traffic from business areas to residential areas,” the commission told Bernama in an email interview.
Telco Players Committed to Investing Where Needed
It said the infrastructure and network upgrades of RM400 million by telcos as announced recently in the Prihatin Rakyat Economic Stimulus Package are in place to upgrade, enhance and maintain the networks to address slower broadband issues.
The MCMC said Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM) and TT dotCom Sdn Bhd (TIME) would be supporting telco players by providing additional fibre capacity to serve higher traffic demand.
The upgrading exercise, which also includes upgrading the capacity and improving coverage for critical locations including hospitals, government agencies, enforcement agencies and media centres, would continue until the end of the second quarter of this year.
“Additional investment has also been put to enhance the network coverage and capacity for critical sites such as hospitals, key government and enforcement agencies, and media centres around the country, to name a few.
“All operators continue to invest where needed, and have teams working 24/7 during this MCO period to maintain sites, upgrade capacity, optimise networks and improve coverage,” the MCMC said.
NFCP In Motion
On top of that, the MCMC said the National Fiberisation and Connectivity Plan (NFCP) would continue to be implemented to improve the country’s digital connectivity, especially in rural areas.
There are six projects that focus on the deployment of infrastructure for fixed and mobile network, namely NFCP 1-6, which are all on track for implementation in 2020 and would be completed in stages between 2021-2023.
NFCP 1, 2, 4 and 6 are aimed at increasing LTE coverage at average speeds of 30 Mbps in populated areas by 2023, while NFCP 3 and 5 are aimed at ensuring that 20 per cent of the premises in sub-urban and rural areas achieve broadband speeds of up to 500 Mbps by 2022.
“At present, the commission expects all projects on the ground to be implemented as planned, with no significant delays.
“The implementation of the NFCP projects is being closely monitored by MCMC in an effort to meet the stipulated project timelines as far as is possible,” it added.
— NNN-BERNAMA