GEORGE TOWN: The Penang government today made it mandatory for all future developments in the state to be high-speed internet ready through fibre optic cables.
The order, which takes effect immediately, comes after the state classified internet services on par with other utilities, such as electricity and water supply.
State Infrastructure Committee chairman Zairil Khir Johari said city council by-laws have been amended to regard the internet as a utility. Penang is believed to be the first state in the country to do so.
“The decision made by the state on Dec 17 is to support the use of high-speed broadband via fibre optic cables, given that the use of copper cables for internet connections have become no longer relevant.
“In ensuring all new development projects are equipped with fibre optic cables, it will enable us to proceed to the next step, which is to provide gigabit internet and hasten the process towards the faster 5G platform,” he said in a statement.
Copper lines, while able to deliver internet speeds of up to 300 megabits per second (Mbps), were in reality only going as high as 30Mbps, previous reports had indicated.
Nearly a million buildings in Malaysia run on copper-cable based internet service, telecommunications provider YTL reported last year. The World Bank had said while Malaysia’s mobile internet use has come up tops, the adoption of fixed-line broadband was too low.
Based on a 2018 World Bank study, Telekom Malaysia has more than 830,000km in fibre-optic cables and 92% of the fixed broadband market.