Making Malaysian economy and society truly digital
IN my view, digital economy is not just for people living in cities and towns but also for those in rural and remote areas. The most critical enabler is the availability of highspeed broadband, which needs to ride on the fibre-optic network.
At the same time, we need to operationalise the full meaning of broadband access not just for consumers but also for suppliers. Anyone in the world should be able to reach web servers located in any premises, whether in cities or villages, through which products can be advertised and offered for sale.
Currently, suppliers need to build or lease space in data centres to locate their web servers. This is not practical or too expensive for rural people. How should we do it then?
When we subscribe to broadband now, we are given a dynamic Internet (IP) address. If we have a web server at home, it cannot be accessed from outside (unless we use a special and rather complicated software) because the address may change every day or we have switched our modem off. Hence, we need a static (fixed) address.
However, IP version 4 (IPv4) addresses are not sufficient for everyone to have a static address. There are only about four billion addresses in IPv4 and almost all have been allocated. To have one, we need to pay a premium price. Hence, we need to use IPv6 addresses. The IPv6 address space is so huge, we need about 38 digits to write it down. Every person in the world can literally have thousands of IPv6 addresses!
Broadband today normally has a higher download speed compared to upload speed. This is suitable for consumer access. But we do need to make it symmetrical and more suitable for supplier access. With a fibre-optic network in place, symmetrical speed would not be an issue.
A person can have a static IPv6 address, which can be assigned to his own web server connected to a symmetrical speed broadband. Today’s web servers are available for just a few hundred ringgit. It can be located in premises even in a remote village. If necessary, IPv4 can still be used by tunnelling through the IPv6 network. The technology is well established.
If there is no electricity supply, a simple solar energy system can be set up. Every person can then participate in the digital economy. Perhaps we can also change the term Malaysian Digital Economy to
Malaysians’ Digital Economy.
If household economy is good, the country’s economy will certainly be good.
What is next? First, we need to extend the fibre-optic network to all populated areas. Next, we need to encourage or force service providers to offer IPv6 static addresses for broadband subscribers. After this, we need symmetrical broadband speed and finally, we need to create awareness among the people to understand the opportunities to participate in the digital economy. Unavailability of high speed and high quality broadband should no longer be an obstacle.