KUALA LUMPUR, March 8 (Bernama) -- The launch of the Terragraph pilot project by YTL Communications and Facebook in Georgetown, Penang in February is one of several significant initiatives supported and implemented by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) to provide robust telecommunications services in the country.
The MCMC in a statement said the six-month long market pilot included the provision of public Wifi and Fixed Wireless Access with the potential of addressing the challenges faced in urban areas such as rising bandwidth per square kilometre, high costs of laying fibreoptic cables, poor capabilities of existing copper infrastructure and limited spectrum at lowere frequencies. "The pilot project is in line with the National Fiberisation and Connectivity Plan (NFCP) that aims at to solve connectivity issues in urban areas where demand for high-speed broadband is high but access is lacking," said the statement, adding that Malaysia was the second country in the world after Hungary to implement the technology.
Meanwhile, MCMC said other initiatives included compounding service providers for various offences including failure to comply with the Mandatory Standards for Quality of Service (MSQoS) in the network and customer service. It said that from January to February 2019, MCMC had issued 63 compounds amounting to RM2.32 million to several service providers. The MCMC is also planning to implement several other initiatives in the near future, including providing regular updates on the MCMC website on the performance of service providers based on several criteria such as complaints response time, notices on non-compliance and MSQoS findings.
It will also organise the Industry Star Rating Award aimed at inculcating the culture of compliance and providing incentives to improve performance among service providers. Under the Industry Star Rating Award, service providers will be assessed based on parameters such as customer satisfaction, service quality, network investment and compliance with the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998.
The commission said it had recently hosted the 2019 Regional Regulators Forum (RTF) and the Telecommunications and Media Forum (TMF) from Feb 12 to 14 which attracted 150 ICT regulators, policy makers and industry experts from 18 countries including Hong Kong, Singapore, the United Kingdom, Germany and the Philippines. The forums discussed on issues such as connectivity and accessibility as a key enablers to digital growth, cybersecurity initiatives to empower consumers and consumer protection, as well as fair competition and 5G roadmap.