After brickbats, Salleh orders for faster, affordable Internet

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Communications and Multimedia Minister Salleh Said Keruak has instructed his ministry to hammer out details on how to improve the country's Internet speed while maintaining affordability after his earlier suggestion that Malaysians prefer slower but cheaper speeds earned brickbats.

"I have asked my ministry to put special emphasis and to focus on infrastructure development to expand the Internet penetration and coverage all over Malaysia.

"Once the infrastructure can cope with it we may consider changing the entry-level package to a higher speed without any substantial increase in cost to maintain affordability and at the same time offer a higher speed.

"My ministry is now looking into the details," he said in a blog posting today.

Last month, DAP supremo Lim Kit Siang ( photo ) criticised Salleh, claiming that the latter was more interested in being chief propagandist for Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak instead of focussing on his ministerial duties including to improve the country's Internet.

Salleh has been a staunch backer of Najib, defending him against calls to resign over the discovery of RM2.6 billion in the premier's personal bank accounts and his handling of 1MDB which is struggling to repay its US$11 billion debt.

Responding to this, Salleh said there are high speed Internet packages but many prefer the cheaper and slower Internet speeds.

"So in the end it all boils down to affordability and Malaysia offers affordable Internet to those who want it and higher speed Internet to those who money is not a problem," he said.

This prompted further criticism that went beyond the political circle including from the National ICT Association of Malaysia (Pikom) chairperson Cheah Kok Hoon who said the country needed to buck up on its Internet infrastructure.

In the blog posting, Salleh said the government is working to upgrade Internet access in both urban and rural areas.

"We are not only concerned over the issue of Internet speed, which has become an issue of debate of late, but also its affordability.

"And off course, apart from that, we are also looking at the issue of coverage to ensure that more people get access to the Internet," he said.

Salleh said his ministry aims 95 percent of Malaysians will have access to Internet by 2020 and at least 50 percent of urban areas and 20 percent of rural areas will have broadband speeds of 100Mbps.

'Caught up in semantics'

In a separate blog post, Salleh also addressed criticism against him, stating that it was a case of getting caught up in semantics.

“When I said 71 percent of subscribers ‘prefer’ the entry-level package for fixed broadband offered by Telekom Malaysia, which starts at 386 kbps, I was not using the word ‘prefer’ in the context of ‘liking’.

“I was referring to statistics where 71 percent subscribers choose the lower package over the others. And statistics do not lie,” he said.

Salleh acknowledged that cost is a main consideration for Malaysians when choosing any service.

“Anyway, if anyone finds my use of the word ‘prefer’ offensive, then I retract that word and replace it with ‘rather’ or ‘choose’.

“Based on the usage of these words they all more or less mean the same. But then ‘rather’ or ‘choose’ do not imply liking, as some may have interpreted the use of ‘prefer’,” he said.



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