Much has been mentioned about the recent ranking position of Malaysia in the Ookla ranking of average speed tests conducted recently which results in divergent outcomes.

As quoted by a local newspaper, the average broadband speed in Malaysia is slower than Vietnam and Cambodia, and barely ahead of Myanmar. Almost three times slower than Vietnam, Malaysia at 5.48 Megabits per second (Mbps) was ranked a low 126 out of 192 countries surveyed from May 2013 to April this year in the recent Net Index.

But when it comes to the availability of hyper fast speeds, Hong Kong is the first ranking with a speed of (78.3 Mbps), followed by Singapore with (66.6 Mbps), while South Korea was ranked fourth (53.77Mbps), the United Kingdom 23rd (26.85Mbps) and the United States, 32nd (23.9Mbps).”

The report was deemed inconclusive, as methods used for the tests are completely unscientific. The speed tests used to arrive at these conclusions were not controlled at all. There could be no exact way of knowing how many internet users were connected to their modem/routers via single Ethernet and how many were connected wirelessly or through third party modems, which might have a big impact on observed data speeds.

For example, Malaysian Internet users performing a ‘speed test’ in a regular cafe with a hotspot facility might not realise the speed test conducted is in an environment where there are other active users browsing the Internet, and thus affects the test conducted. An example case would be if 10 users were sharing a 10Mb broadband connection, one person would most likely get a 1mb connection if shared equally on best effort basis.

However, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) in its press release, said Communications and Multimedia Minister Ahmad Shabery Cheek’s scepticism on online data published by Ookla on Malaysia’s broadband speed “was not without basis”.  

According to MCMC’s press release it has long recognised the need to upgrade broadband speeds and quality and since 2010 has pushed for broadband expansion through the implementation of the High Speed Broadband (HSBB) project under the National Broadband Initiative (NBI). MCMC has gone so far as to issue new spectrum on LTE on 2.6GHz and also allowed the existing operators to upgrade their networks in the 1800MHz band to LTE.

While acknowledging more could be done to improve the nation’s Internet penetration and speed, the MMCP president urges more entities providing public Wi-Fi service to boost or upgrade its Internet connection, as more and more Malaysians are converting to smart devices, thus increasing the need for high speed broadband.

Malaysians are generally lucky as there are many café operators providing free Wi-Fi service to complement its F&B offerings, as compared to most countries in Europe, where Wi-Fi services are charged. This promotes more development in the mobile content industry, where mobile users are starting to download more and more of rich content such as video, applications and games.

JOHARY MUSTAPHA is president of the Malaysian Mobile Content Provider Association (MMCP).