It was certainly heartening to hear that the mini budget announced by our DPM will also allocate RM 5.4B for improving the broadband infrastructure in Malaysia. The country’s broadband infrastructure is definitely in need of improvement to match other developing countries in this region. Not only is the service below par but the monthly charges are absurd as well. The stimulus in the budget can certainly be seen as a boost for broadband in Malaysia.

According to David Wong who is the chairman of the Association of the Computer and Multimedia Industry of Malaysia (Pikom), this move would help to achieve the Government’s 50% broadband penetration rate target by the end of 2010. Currently the broadband penetration in Malaysia is only 17.5% which is a small percentage considering the size of the country. Compare that with a broadband penetration of 30.4% in 2008 in Taiwan and you can see a big difference. According to Wong, RM 3B will be used to roll out the High Speed Broadband (HSBB) service to the entire nation at a faster rate.

The money will be used to improve connection speeds of 2Mbps to 1Gbps which is quite decent. So where does the other RM 2.4B go to? That will be provided to the SKMM to facilitate broadband community centres and provision of basic telephony services in rural areas.

Let us hope with these plans in place the state of our broadband services in Malaysia will be improved. We definitely need to see some big improvement in the areas of stability of connection and connection speeds too. Once these have been worked on, then the service providers will need to charge the consumers a reasonable rate and not an exorbitant price as it is currently being done. Maybe a few more players in the broadband field would straighten things out with some healthy competition? What’s your say?

UPDATE: Here’s a list of internet providers in Malaysia. How many of them are you actually aware of? What kind of competition do they provide to Streamyx? (Source TheDaneshProject)

My pick is PenangFON – 2MB/s at RM 66/month RM 60/month. I just need to remember to pay my bills!

1. eBulding – http://www.eb.net.my/
2. Airzed – http://www.airzed.com/
3. Arcnet NTT MSC Sdn Bhd – http://www.arc.net.my/
4. Atlas One Broadband Internet Provider – http://www.atlasone.net/
5. Biz Surf – Broadband Internet services – http://www.bizsurf.com/
6. Celcom – http://www.celcom.net.my/
7. Digi – http://www.digi.com.my
8. Giga Broadband VDSL – http://www.vdslnetwork.com/
9. Gold Information Systems Wireless broadband provider – http://www.gissb.com/
10. iDiGi Internet Services – http://www.idigi.com.my/
11. iZZi – Mobile wireless broadband, iBurst – http://www.izzi.com.my/
12. Jaring - http://www.jaring.my/
13. Maxis Broadband – http://www.maxis.net.my/
14. Metro FON – http://www.metrofon.com.my/
15. NasionCom – http://www.nasioncom.com.my/
16. Penang FON – http://www.penangfon.com/
17. PutraNet – http://www.putra.net.my/
18. Time Net – http://www.time.com.my/
19. Time Broadband – http://timebroadband.time.net.my/
20. TMnet – http://tm.net.my/
21. TMnet Streamyx – http://isp.tm.net.my/streamyx/
22. Webbit – Time Wireless Broadband – http://timebroadband.time.net.my/webbit/
23. ZapZone Wireless Hotspot – http://www.zapzone.com.my/
24. Netlynx by TIME dotCom Berhad – http://www.netlynx.net.my/

25. P1WiMAX – http://www.p1.com.my
26. InfoLient – http://www.infolient.com

27. Amax – http://www.amax.my

Mobile Broadband and WiMax are also included in the list.

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