Malaysia’s government has launched an aggressive drive to lift its lowly broadband usage, with plans afoot for free WiFi broadband rollouts in 25 cities and public partnerships with the private sector to jointly underwrite new broadband infrastructure.

The plans were revealed at conference where Energy, Water & Communications Minister Lim Keng Yaik justified what he called a second nationwide broadband push by saying 3G had not been the tidal wave he expected to create a broadband boom, and had only caused “small ripples.” Also up for a rethink is a previous plan to achieve 90% broadband penetration in the central Klang Valley where Kuala Lumpur is situated in favour of a broader 50% penetration target for the entire country. In the light of this, the Klang Valley’s provincial overlord—the Selangor State Government—is considering amending the target to 75%.

The Federal Government has already indicated it might provide financing for a Telekom Malaysia fibre-to-the-home network and yesterday Lim indicated that more public-private partnership-type projects might be on the cards to achieve the 50% penetration goal.

However, the most ambitious announcement of the day was left to Yow Lock Seng, special officer with the communications division of Lim’s ministry, who outlined a proposal to offer 5000 free WiFi hotspots across 25 major towns in all regions of peninsular and eastern Malaysia.

The service would resemble that offered in Singapore as part of wireless@SG—users would sign up at a National Broadband Online Registration Centre Portal, with a user ID, password and instant access to the free WiFi service. This would also serve as a de facto survey for broadband demand and enable data collection and better planning by state governments.

Phase one deployment of 2000 hotspots in urban areas be funded by the private sector first. Only service providers who fulfill 50 percent of their allotted coverage will be eligible for government financial backing to roll-out the remaining 3000 hotspots in semi-urban and rural areas.

For end users, the proposed WiFi service will be free for the first two years. It would not seek to compete with existing telcos or ISPs as mobility and range will be limited. Only layer 2 roaming supported. The government believes it will also attract new users to the market who do not currently subscribe to services.

Yow said, “We want to see the private sector take over the initial two years of OPEX funding” after which he suggested advertisements and VoIP services could come into play to help funding of expenditure. He also stated that a request for proposal would be issued by December this year, and that the first phase deployment would take approximately six months after award of the license. So far, service providers, network vendors and even a WiMax operator have indicated interest to participate, said Yow.

Earlier, Datuk Dr. Halim Shafie, Chairman of the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Corporation said that deployment strategies to meet penetration and speed targets would include multiple technologies, with fixed fibre heavily emphasised along with broadband powerline, 3G, WiMax and even the recently introduced iBurst.

He also mentioned that the MCMC was in talks with Telekom Malaysia to set up a broadband measurement and awareness group. In a month of two, the Cabinet Committee in Broadband is also expected to announce commitments which Shafie termed as “quite revolutionary”.

Part of the 3G and WiMax license condition had been for awarded companies to submit their business plans with rollout targets. Shafie added, “Penalties will be taken if there is non-conformance.”

Wireless broadband access target for the first year is 25-percent of the population and 40-percent of the population by the third year. Shafie also commented that thanks to 3G there has been a significant increase in non-household broadband penetration. When asked about any potential 2.5GHz spectrum allocation for WiMax services, Lim stated that he had “not made a decision, yet.” He even said that he was actually looking to the International Telecommunication Union’s pending recommendations to better decide how to use that spectrum.· Last week’s Malaysian budget provided two boosts for broadband. Last mile network facilities providers will be given a tax investment allowance of 100 percent on capital expenditure incurred for broadband up to December 31, 2010. And import duty and sales tax exemptions will be given on broadband equipment and consumer access devices.by Catherine Yong 

add to delicious | add to digg | search technorati