Govt, service providers to resolve bare telco tower issue in Sarawak

KUALA LUMPUR: The federal government and five main mobile service providers have agreed to share the cost of resolving the issue of bare telecommunications towers in Sarawak, said Communications and Digital Minister Fahmi Fadzil.

Fahmi said CelcomDigi, Maxis, U Mobile, TM Tech and YTL Communications will share the cost needed by the tower operators to provide 4G service.

He said the federal government and the mobile service provider companies involved will fund RM207 million, comprising RM119.4 million by the federal government and RM87.3 million by service provider companies for a period of three years starting next year until 2026.

"The operation of these towers for the provision of 4G services in phases will start as early as January 2024," he said in response to a question by Chiew Choon Man (PH-Miri) on the actions to overcome the issue of towers with no dish in Sarawak in the Dewan Rakyat, here today.

Meanwhile, Fahmi said the ministry will present a paper at the National Council for Local Government today to start discussions with all state governments to resolve issues related to the construction of telecommunications towers across the country.

On the issue of 196 telecommunications towers across the country that had to wait up to nine months for fiber installation, Fahmi said he had ordered the installation of microwave antenna dishes on all towers to ensure they could operate immediately.

In a separate question, Fahmi said the Ministry of Communications and Digital (KKD) through the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) is studying the Mandatory Standards for Quality of Service (MSQoS) by mobile service providers.

He said it is to ensure the network speed provided to consumers is at a satisfactory level.

“Our problem now is that MSQoS has set that mobile service providers only need to achieve a speed of 2.5 Mbps.

“This is a very slow rate but it has been set in the current regulation,” he said when replying to a supplementary question by Kamal Ashaari (PN-Kuala Krau) who wanted to know why is Pahang trailing behind in the 5G network achievement.

-- BERNAMA