GEORGE TOWN: YTL Communications Sdn Bhd (YTL) has made a landmark breakthrough with their Terragraph and Gigawire technology, bringing fibre optic speed to homes with Internet copper wire installations.
Its chief executive officer, Wing K. Lee, said it was crucial to come up with the solution as the older residential areas were installed with copper wires Internet connection and it would be a hassle to change them to fibre optics.
This solution, he said, could emulate the fibre optics-like speed without the need to change the existing wires.
“There are about one million households in the country, which are still stuck with the copper wire technology.
“It would be unreasonable for them to move (to fibre optics) just to enjoy the high-speed broadband technology.
“So, we brought a solution. This is the first of its kind in the world!
“Our plan is to commercialise this and we are working closely with the government to deploy the Terragraph technology before installing the Gigawire technology in homes with copper wires (installation),” he said here today.
Also present was state Housing, Town and Country Planning Committee chairman Jagdeep Singh Deo.
YTL put on a demonstration of the new technology at the Penang Chinese Town Hall, here, showing the speed variant with and without the new technology.
By using existing copper wires, the Internet speed was clocked at about one megabits per second (Mbps) download speed while with the integration of Terragraph and Gigawire, the speed went up to more than 150 Mbps.
“We are bringing an alternative to those who are using the copper wires,” he said.
On the time frame involved in commercialising the new technology, he said they were actively engaging the government on the matter.
The pilot project for Terragraph, which was launched earlier this year in the state capital, is expected to end by September.
A survey found that 93 per cent of customers were satisfied.
George Town is now known as having the largest Terragraph network in the world.