RM28 billion has been allocated to roll out the National Digital Infrastructure Plan, which is known as Jalinan Digital Negara (Jendela), to strengthen digital connectivity in the country.
Jendela has achieved milestones for the first phase of the plan since its implementation a year ago.
These include the presentation of three papers to the National Council for Local Government on March 3, which led to the federal government recognising telecommunications as the third public utility on June 3.
This also includes the adoption of the Communication Infrastructure Planning Guideline (GPP-I) and/or amendments of the Uniform Building By-Laws (UBBL) by state governments.
These will drive the country to foster a digital economy.
The fixed line fiber optic network will cover almost 100 per cent of premises in stages — from 7.5 million premises by the end of next year to nine million by the end of 2025.
Additionally, the implementation of Jendela will ensure that the country is well-prepared to embrace fifth generation cellular network technology or 5G.
Jendela aspires to achieve 100 per cent 4G coverage and 100Mbps mobile broadband speed once 3G networks are phased out.
The plan is being implemented in stages and is divided into two phases: Phase 1, from last year to 2022; and Phase 2 after 2022.
The targets set under Phase 1 of Jendela will ensure that resources are optimised for fixed and mobile access, by providing gigabit speed access for fixed services from 4.95 million premises to 7.5 million premises.
The coverage for the 4G network will also be expanded from 91.8 per cent to 96.9 per cent in populated areas, and mobile broadband speeds will be increased from 25Mbps to 35Mbps.
The first phase will involve the sunsetting of the 3G network in stages by the service providers until the end of this year. By switching off 3G, the spectrum frequency will be reused for 4G, hence improving the quality of the 4G network.
Phase 2 will focus on bridging the digital divide with the introduction of fit-for-purpose solutions, such as "Fixed Wireless Access" (FWA) technology.
RM1.65 billion will be invested by telecommunications companies to boost connectivity to the international submarine cable network until 2023, paving the way for faster and more stable international data transfers, thus lowering Internet costs for consumers in Malaysia.
Through the announcement of Malaysia Digital Economy Blueprint, the government has expedited 5G deployment in Malaysia from 2023 to 2025. This will attract digital investment and provide new services, mainly to businesses or enterprises.
RM16.5 billion will be invested for 10 years for the 5G rollout in Malaysia, which is expected to create almost 148,000 jobs.
Jendela contributed to accelerating the 5G deployment by Digital Nasional Bhd, the government-owned special purpose vehicle undertaking the deployment of the 5G infrastructure and network, on June 1.
In addition, between RM12 billion and RM15 billion will be invested by cloud service providers over the next five years.
The government has given conditional permission to four CSP companies — Microsoft, Google, Amazon and Telekom Malaysia — build and manage hyper-scale data centres and cloud services.
The government has also proposed to appoint three local information and communications technology companies as Manage Service Providers to work with these CSPs to manage CSP services to public sector agencies, in line with the desire to strengthen the capacity of local companies.
The companies are: Enfrasys Solution Sdn Bhd, Prestariang Systems Sdn Bhd and Cloud Connect Sdn Bhd.
To strengthen public sector cloud computing services, the government through the Cloud First strategy, has targeted the migration of 80 per cent of public data to this hybrid cloud system by the end of next year.
In addition to collecting and managing data more effectively and smoothly, this strategy can reduce government costs in information technology management in the long run.
Cloud services will also enable big data applications, Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things and others to be used to strengthen government services.