Internet speed in Malaysia

Good internet speed is no longer a luxury but a necessity in every Malaysian home/office

Malaysians can’t live without their latest gadgets and internet connection is definitely a must-have today, not just in the busy urban areas but in rural locations, even amidst village houses. Even the elder generations can be seen tapping and scrolling on their smart phones, I-pads, tablets; and children as young as one to two years can be seen playing with parents’ IT devices when left alone.

Are We Well Connected?

Yes and no. Malaysia has many service providers offering various packages and promotions with a variety of speed connections. That said, Malaysians can be classified to be one of the most globally-connected people. Shopping online is getting addictive as many local websites are mushrooming to cater to these buffs and e-banking, e-mails, watching videos, audio visual chats, global positioning system (GPS) have raised consumption of vast volumes of bandwidth for Malaysians’ increasing digital lifestyle.

The question is, do most Malaysians realize if they’re getting the internet speed they have subscribed to?

How Fast Is Our Speed Connection, Really?

If you’ve signed up to pay expensive fee for a high-speed connection, you will realize that after a speed check (you can try this website – http://www.speedtest.net/) you’re not really getting what you’ve subscribed to. You can easily tell with slow website loading and downloads that has bogged down many growing frustrated Malaysians.

The Malaysian business community is even more concerned about the country’s slow internet speed, the unavailability of wireless and fibre connections, and high costs of connectivity as their global business communications and transactions rely heavily on high speed connection. Unfortunately, connectivity here is slow compared with its neighbouring countries.

The average internet speed in Malaysia is slower than Vietnam and Cambodia and barely ahead of Myanmar, according to a new global survey. (Survey conducted by Ookla – a global broadband testing and web-based network diagnostic applications company).

Is The Government Addressing Our Concerns?

As Malaysians continue to send their grouses to MCMC (Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission), the Ministry is scrambling to address the needs and concerns of all parties, executing plans to upgrade broadband speeds and quality with the implementation of High Speed Broadband project under the National Broadband Initiative (NBI).

The Ministry admits that the explosive growth of broadband consumption has left them underestimating the nation’s demands and fulfilment is agonizingly slow as they hurdle through implementation of high-speed internet connection throughout the country.

It is reported to be mid-way of its project execution in their efforts to improve speeds and their broadband roll-out plan focuses on the whole nation so that each Malaysian citizen will be able to enjoy high-speed connectivity.

In the next three years, the Ministry is said to be planning expansion of high speed broadband in the cities to have a minimum speed of 100Mbps and to upgrade broadband in suburban areas to have at least a minimum speed of 4-10Mbps.

Wait As Usual

And like many other Malaysians, we adopt a waiting attitude which is a norm. Test your internet speed three years from now and see if you’ve got the additional speed the government assured. Not that it really matters. After three years, whether the MCMC has fulfilled its policy or not, we will face another quandary that should have been planned and implemented for as of today.