2.2 million homes in Malaysia with high-speed broadband in the next three to five years, said TM chief executive officer for the group’s Malaysian business, Zamzamzairani Mohd Isa.
He said the connection, which would be done through fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) and fibre-to-the-curb links, was part of its roll-out plan to transfer from the traditional network to a fully Internet Protocol (IP) network in ten years.
“And one of the applications considered (for the IP network) is through IP television,” he said at the Capacity Magazine’s 4th Annual Asia-Pacific Wholesale Communications Congress (Capacity Asia 2007) here Monday.
Zamzairani was one of the speakers in the first session entitled, “Exploiting the Growth Potential of the Asia-Pacific Wholesale Telecoms Market: Capacity Investment, Evolution of Services and Accessing New Market Opportunities”.
Previously, Telekom was reported to be in talks with the Ministry of Energy, Water and Communications to provide high-speed FTTH links in selected urban areas to increase broadband penetration in Malaysia.
Its Minister, Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik estimated that the cost for the installation of FTTH in selected urban areas was about RM13 billion while the cost for the whole country was RM56 billion.
Later, when met by Bernama on the sidelines, Zamzamzairani said the roll-out of the project would take ten years, but the first three-and-a-half years were most aggressive.
“We have identified key areas … Klang Valley, Northern corridor, Southern corridor, with Eastern corridor coming up and the state capitals.
“By having all these, we can move towards full IP network and Next Generation Networking, and push Malaysia into the next stage,” he said.
However, he said, the telecommunications industry itself needed to be given time to implement full IP network, and that was why TM was taking its time to make the transformation.
“In order for the whole industry to move to this, everyone must be on IP or you have to provide some translation of the IP address to the traditional numbering system,” he said.-Bernama
