引用:

The signing of the so called high-speed broadband (HSBB) project has been postponed at least twice. This flip-flop does not reflect well on our decision-making process. The world is watching. It has been almost a year since the surprise announcement on HSBB was made in September 2007. In the meantime, our broadband environment continues to suffer. It is rather sad that we have to endure this state of affairs.

Obviously, the HSBB project is a sensitive issue simply because it involves public funds and the well-being of many competing service providers. The project could have been better managed if Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) had been given the chance to declare a statement of intent and industry players to make comments or proposals. We could have spent the last one year thrashing out all the issues.

As it is, we are still in the dark as to what exactly is HSBB, other than the fact it is going to cost RM15.2 billion and will cover zone one (cities and major towns) of the country, which has been divided into three zones. We still do not know how the other service providers can make use of HSBB to offer their own broadband services. The pricing scheme has also not been worked out.

Regardless of whether HSBB will proceed or not, I believe the country needs a more comprehensive programme to tackle the broadband issue on a long-term and sustainable basis so that we can catch up and be more competitive with the other developed countries. This programme can even ease some of the burden of the HSBB operator (if the project proceeds).

Firstly, we need to bring affordable broadband to every home within a reasonable period of time. Broadband should become a basic utility service like water and electricity. It should have the same price irrespective of geographical location and can be turned on if requested by any user who is willing to pay. Looking at the rising demand for advanced applications, we need at least 10 Mbps (megabits per second). In fact 100 Mbps should be the norm.

With the popular FTTH (fibre-to-the-home) technology using GEPON (gigabit ethernet passive optical network) standard, 30 households can share one Gbps broadband speed. If five million households have just 10 Mbps each, we need at least 50 terabits per second (50 million Mbps) of switching capacity nationwide. Such a scale of capacity and coverage cannot be provided by a single provider without a collaborative framework in place. Furthermore, it is not only about the source of funding. Profit cannot be the primary motivation. Private initiative is unlikely to succeed.

Secondly, any such initiative must be financially self-sustainable after the initial seeding and development phase. Network switching equipment will have to be replaced every five years or so and fibre optic cable must be replaced after 20 years. Expansion to new housing areas must be carried out. Upgrading of capacity must meet the growing number of users and demand of new applications. The duration of any concession period must match this cycle. When we take into consideration that more and more services are now converging on high speed Internet, the market size is big enough to make this highly feasible. But it cannot be done on a piecemeal basis.

Thirdly, the operator of such network must be working purely as a wholesaler. It should treat all licensed last-mile providers fairly and should never compete with them. The pricing plan must be published. Service levels must be non-discriminatory. It has to abide by the first-come-firstserved principle.

Lastly, the network must be service-neutral or, as some people call it, "dumb". All "intelligent" features that matter to end-users should be handled at the outer edge of the network by the last-mile providers on a competitive basis. Let them innovate and compete. Of course, it must have all the necessary capabilities to protect itself against any external threats. It must have enough redundancy features to avoid any single point of failures.

The government can play a certain role to make this happen. Firstly, it may have to provide seed funding either in the form of a grant or soft loan, especially for related civil works. This will help bring down the price to the end-users to trigger a snowball effect. Secondly, the government should amend certain laws and regulations to make broadband a basic utility. Every new building and road must be broadband-ready; this means preparing the trenches and laying the ducts for fibre optic cables. Of course, all existing roads must also be upgraded. Thirdly, the government should continue to monitor and maintain a competitive environment even after a self-sustainable state is attained. The concession status may then be reviewed.

I think we still have time to act and achieve something significant before 2020. But we must act for a long-term, self-sustainable goal. I strongly believe that with a comprehensive programme, we can improve our broadband by at least 10 times (if not 100) within 5 to 10 years and make it equally available in all populated areas (urban and rural) by roads. A parallel programme must also be initiated for other areas to achieve the universal service provisioning goal.

A very good point from the CEO and let's hope for a better broadband in the future~