KUALA LUMPUR: The Ministry of Communications Malaysia has commended the Malaysia Internet Exchange (MYIX) for its important role over the past two decades in strengthening the country’s Internet infrastructure and supporting economic growth and the development of Malaysia’s communications sector.

MYIX recently hosted its 20th Anniversary Dinner in recognition of the organisations and individuals who have contributed to its development since its establishment in 2006, particularly in strengthening the country’s Internet ecosystem.

Delivering a speech on behalf of Communications Minister YB Dato’ Seri Ahmad Fahmi bin Mohamed Fadzil, the Ministry’s secretary-general Datuk Abdul Halim Hamzah highlighted MYIX’s contribution to Malaysia’s digital ecosystem over the past two decades in a Facebook post.

“Over the past two decades, MYIX has continued to play an important role in strengthening Malaysia’s Internet infrastructure while supporting economic growth and the development of the communications sector,” he said.

Meanwhile, MYIX chairman Chiew Kok Hin said that the exchange was established in 2006 to address a fundamental inefficiency in Malaysia’s Internet ecosystem, where traffic travelling from one Malaysian network to another could previously leave the country before returning, adding international transit costs and latency.

Chiew also paid tribute to early advocate Afzal Abdul Rahim and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) for recognising the need to keep domestic Internet traffic within the country and helping lay the foundations for the exchange.

He said that Afzal’s advocacy for local peering helped shape the early thinking that led to MYIX’s establishment, while MCMC foresaw the challenge and brought industry players together behind a common purpose.

MYIX was subsequently launched as Malaysia’s pioneering neutral, non-profit Internet exchange, with the objective of “keeping local Internet traffic local” and enabling Malaysian networks to exchange traffic directly, efficiently and affordably.

Chiew said that what began with a small group of networks and peak traffic of about 300 megabits per second has since grown into an exchange handling peak traffic of close to three terabits per second, nearly 10,000 times its initial level.

Along the way, MYIX has expanded to include service providers, data centres, content providers, universities, enterprises and international partners.

Chiew said that beyond these numerical milestones, one of MYIX’s most important achievements has been the trust and solidarity built across the industry, where direct market competitors continue to work together on infrastructure critical to Malaysia’s digital ecosystem.

“Collaborating on vital national infrastructure strengthens and elevates the entire digital ecosystem of our beloved nation,” he said.

He said that MYIX had also demonstrated its resilience during the Covid-19 pandemic, when homes suddenly became offices, classrooms and meeting rooms and demand for Internet connectivity increased sharply.

Looking ahead, Chiew said that artificial intelligence, cloud computing, data centres, 5G and new digital services would require greater capacity, lower latency and stronger security.

“At 20, MYIX is old enough to know what we are doing, but still far too young to slow down,” he said.

Chiew said that talent development and digital inclusion had also become increasingly important parts of MYIX’s work, including industry training initiatives and its Digital Classroom CSR Programme.

Under the programme, MYIX has pledged 15 smart boards to schools in need across the country, including schools in Gua Musang and SMK Bandar Sunway.

He said that MYIX’s progress over its first 20 years belonged to the wider Internet community and that its future would continue to depend on the same spirit of collaboration, trust and shared purpose.

Source: MYIX

This article was contributed by communications consultant Michael Ang based in KL. He was previously a journalist with an English daily in KL and had stints as head of comms for IBM Malaysia and Microsoft Malaysia, before serving as Microsoft Corporate PR lead for the Asia-Pacific region in Singapore.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of Malaysiakini.

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