Thick fog has been identified as one of the three main causes for Internet outages in wireless villages in the country, Deputy Communication and Multimedia Minister Jailani Johari said.

He said the other two causes were application failure due to thunderstorms or excess heat phenomenon and power supply disruption, especially in Sabah and Sarawak.

“As such, the ministry is studying ways to further improve and upgrade the Internet service for the 1Malaysia Wireless Village initiative so that the government’s aspiration to enable more villagers to access the Internet will be achieved.”

He said this when winding up the debate on Supplementary Supply (2013) Bill 2014 for the ministry at the Dewan Rakyat sitting in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

The deputy minister said the Wireless Village initiative was one of the efforts by the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) to provide WiFi hotspots in selected locations, especially in rural areas, nationwide.

Jailani said the ministry, through MCMC, had implemented various initiatives, including preparing fixed line telephone service and community broadband service and expanding the coverage area for public cellular phones under the National Broadband Initiative (NBI).

Among the projects implemented under the NBI are the construction of telecommunication towers, 1Malaysia Internet Centres, Small Community Broadband Centres, Broadband Libraries and Wireless Villages, he added.

- Bernama