‘Two terabits per second not impossible’
Sacofa Sdn Bhd managing director Zaid Zaini is confident that with the present ground network laid down by Sacofa, it is possible to achieve Chief Minister Datuk Amar Abang Johari Tun Openg’s vision of a high speed Internet highway of two terabits per second in years to come.
Zaid said this while speaking on ‘ Challenges and Future Perspective on the Next Generat ion I nternet Infrastructure’ during the International ICT Infrastructure and Digital Economy Conference Sarawak ( Idecs) 2017 which was held at Borneo Convention Centre Kuching ( BCCK) here yesterday.
He highlighted some of the challenges Sacofa has faced in providing Internet connectivity in rural areas which included the absence of power supply and the theft of equipment such as generators.
“Some remote parts of Sarawak are off the grid. And to power up, generators had to be used. The problem is they (the generators) got stolen,” he said.
Apart from physical i n ac c e s sibi l i t y, t he fac t that t e l e c ommu ni c a t i on infrastructure has not been recognised as a utility was also a challenge.
“The high cost of commissioning fibre in remote areas has also posed a challenge,” he said, citing the case of Telok Melano which was unreachable by road and fibre materials had to be sent by boat.
He said Sarawak only has a population of 2.6 mi l lion, though it has the same land size as Peninsular Malaysia which has a population 10 times that of Sarawak.
With low population density and big land mass, it has also been a challenge to provide high speed Internet infrastructure as commercial viability came into consideration.
However, according to Zaid, the government still maintains the view that there must be a balance between commercial considerations and its social obligation.
“This is where the government comes in because not everything is about money,” he said.
Citing Kapit and Lawas as cases in point, he said feedback Sacofa received indicated that even after setting up towers, the pick up rate has been slow in these towns which are 287 km and 1,065 km away from Kuching respectively.
On a whole, he said, the broadband penetration rate was presently 51.8 per cent across Sarawak.
Speedwise, Sarawak has been enjoying an average speed of 4 Mbps and compared to other countries in Asia such as South Korea ( 27 Mbps) and Hong Kong (19.5 Mbps), Internet speed here is considered slow.
However, he argued that speed might be subjective. There were some areas that might enjoy high speed but as other rural areas might have zero connectivity, on average, Sarawak seemed to have a slow broadband speed of 4 Mbps.
He also pointed out that the state government has formulated a long-term perspective plan for Sarawak known as Sarawak Socio-Economic Transformation Plan ( SETP) 2016– 2030 which included the three areas of socioeconomic transformation, rural transformation and performance as well as service and delivery transformation.
“Sarawak’s target as per SETP is a minimum of 95 per cent broadband coverage in populated areas by 2020 and 100 per cent coverage for broadband in populated areas by 2030 with a minimum throughput of 30 Mbps,” Zaid said.
He believed that with both state and federal government initiatives and plans in enhancing Internet infrastructure, it would be possible to achieve the high speed which Abang Johari has envisioned.