Telekom Malaysia (TM) says its nationwide high-speed broadband (HSBB) project has already started to positively impact Malaysia’s economy.
“HSBB is making considerable impact on economic activity in the country, generating work worth hundreds of millions of ringgit for local companies and businesses, creating numerous jobs, providing thousands of workers with training in project and infrastructure-related technology, and boosting local capacity building in the process,” said TM Group chief executive officer, Dato’ Zamzamzairani Mohd Isa.
Zamzamzairani said commercial and fiscal results of the project would boost gross domestic product (GDP) by 0.6 per cent and also create 100,000 jobs by 2012. “HSBB- related contract work has been issued to almost 200 local vendors, with more to come. In addition, 1,400 TM contractors have been exposed to HSBB training, and a US$168 million (RM600 million) contract for FTTH (fibre to the home) passive infrastructure has been awarded, with a tender process for other components in progress.”
“TM’s involvement in new technology and systems for the project has resulted in the creation of almost 4,000 new jobs within the project’s eco-system, with both TM and the external project consultants and vendors involved to cater for the project scope in systems, fibre access and IP (Internet protocol) core infrastructure,” he said.
Under a public private partnership, TM is investing its own US$2.49 billion (RM8.9 billion) in the next 10 years to finance the network infrastructure roll-out, while the Malaysian government is co-investing US$680 million (RM2.4 billion), making up the total of US$3.12 billion (RM11.3 billion).
“Even at this early implementation stage, the HSBB project is already benefiting Malaysian companies and businesses, and this boost comes at a time of difficult economic conditions for local vendors and businesses,” said Zamzamzairani. “TM has also invested resources and is continuing to do so in boosting human capital development to ensure that the workforce involved in the project is equipped with the relevant skill sets and know-how.”
He said that to date, more than 6,500 people in TM’s contractor workforce are overseeing the physical fibre access roll-out for HSBB. “In addition, the project has also seen the deployment of a vendor workforce of more than 13,000 personnel.”
“While local companies and businesses have been major beneficiaries of the implementation of the HSBB network to date, the continued rollout of the project in the coming years will bring more benefits to a broader cross section of Malaysian society in terms of capacity building, local content development, IP technology transfer and end-user experience,” said Zamzamzairani.
In addition, he said: “TM will continue to drive Malaysia’s broadband penetration through its services categorised under the broadband for general population (BBGP). This is a broadband service offering network speeds of up to 4.0Mbps delivered via wired, wireless and mobile technologies such as ADSL, wi-fi, WiMax and high-speed downlink packet access and is available nationwide.”
