Zahidi: Ministry negotiating with telcos to provide cellular internet network coverage in rural Baram

Zahidi says his ministry and MCMC are still negotiating with other government agencies and telcos at the moment in identifying the populated areas in Baram to enable telecommunication facilities to be set up. – File photo

KUCHING: The Ministry of Communications and Multimedia and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) are in the midst of negotiation with telecommunications companies (telcos) to provide cellular internet network coverage in the rural areas of Baram.

According to Deputy Minister of Communications and Multimedia Datuk Zahidi Zainul Abidin, his ministry and MCMC are still negotiating with other government agencies and telcos at the moment in identifying the populated areas in Baram to enable telecommunication facilities to be set up.

“As of June 2020, the government has built 43 telecommunication towers and upgraded 46 existing ones in Baram parliamentary constituency. At the moment six new telecommunication towers are being built there.

“At the moment, the ministry and MCMC are negotiating with industry players and other government agencies to identify populated areas in Baram parliament including Long Apu, Long Spigen and Long Palai to strengthen the quality of existing coverage and expand their coverage with suitable technologies available, to be implemented in the nearest future,” he said during the Dewan Rakyat sitting this morning.

Zahidi was answering a question by Baram MP Anyi Ngau on the status of cellular or 4G network expansion to longhouses in Long Apu, Long Spigen and Long Palai and other areas in his constituency.

Anyi in his additional question pointed out that there are more than 400 settlements in Baram, and suggested that if it is challenging to build telecommunication towers in these areas, the Ministry of Communications and Multimedia and MCMC could set up a WiFi network at the longhouses instead.

Zahidi meanwhile explained that some of the challenges faced by his ministry and MCMC in setting up telecommunication towers in Baram were mainly logistics and electricity supply to provide power to the telecommunication transmitters on the towers.

Because of that, he said his ministry had applied for additional allocation from MCMC in their effort to provide telecommunication networks in the rural areas of Baram.

“Nonetheless, we have asked MCMC to put Baram as the priority because the allocation is provided by the government for the rural areas,” he said.

Meanwhile, Hulu Rajang MP Datuk Wilson Ugak Kumbong suggested the use of solar hybrid system to solve the electricity supply problem to the telecommunication towers.

He said there had been occasions where the diesel powered generator sets used to power the towers were either stolen or out of diesel, and that solar hybrid would be able to solve that issue.

Zahidi said it is difficult to monitor the security of the telecommunication towers at all times due to logistic problems. He said even with solar hybrid, those components could also be stolen, including the telecommunication hardware.

“Nonetheless we are looking for new technologies, including satellite internet, to provide telecommunication coverage in the rural areas of Sarawak and Sabah,” he added.

Zahidi also said the National Digital Infrastructure Lab which was carried out on Aug 13 and 14 had also discussed in detail on how to provide telecommunications and internet coverage in the rural areas.

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