Abg Jo to meet Telekom’s top guns for faster Internet

KUCHING: Tourism Minister Datuk Amar Abang Johari Tun Openg said he would be meeting Telekom Malaysia ( TM)'s top management soon to get them to improve telecommunication infrastructure in the state.

He said he would invite the State Planning Unit ( SPU) to attend the meeting as investment to improve infrastructure for faster Internet speed would cost billions of ringgit.

“They ( TM) don't know how they are going to recover from that investment and whether the economic activities here will be able to give them that income for them to pay off the financing for the infrastructure.

“Therefore, I will bring SPU so that they can see what kind of revenue they could expect from Sarawak," he told reporters here yesterday.

Abang Johari, who is also Housing Minister, was asked to comment on his recent call on TM to improve its infrastructure in the state to meet the rising demands for faster Internet speed.

He said he had met with TM's top management from Sarawak on Wednesday and they admitted TM was facing problems in laying the infrastructure, especially the fibre optic lines, which are very expensive.

“What happened is the management in Kuala Lumpur. They only concentrate in areas like Klang Valley to install Unifi, but I told them if we were to attract investment into Sarawak, we must have the fastest Internet speed and communications that are more up to date as pre-requisite.”

Abang Johari also conveyed to the TM top management in Sarawak that in order to develop coastal tourism, the state would require high speed fibre optic infrastructure for areas like Darul Hana and between the Kuching International Airport and Damai Resort.

“To them, they are looking into it, but it will be a very huge investment. The main planner from Kuala Lumpur will come over here and they will give us a briefing at the same time. I will give them a briefing on what we plan to do, particularly in the first division.

“After that, then we will extend to the other parts of Sarawak because we must lay down the latest fibre optic in the trunk road, and I think we have to work with them.”

Abang Johari said what was important now was the network linkage between Sarawak and the international network through Hong Kong, which is very expensive. “If they were to do a basic trunk, it will cost them at least RM2 to 3 billion, which is a lot of money. But I told them they don't have to do that initially...”