TelBru targets 45,000 FTTH connections in 3 years

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BANDAR SERI BEGAWAN: The new management of Telekom Brunei Bhd (TelBru) is working wonders with connectivity and gearing up to provide even better service for its valued customers, Borneo Bulletin reported.

In an interview with the Weekend Bulletin, David Kay, the Chief Executive Officer of TelBru, said his team was currently combing the ICT world for new technology to be introduced to the Bruneian population as a means of fulfilling its, promise that it made not too long ago in giving the people faster, better Internet connection.

With an anticipated growth of customers in the coming years and as demand for Internet continues to grow, Mr Kay shared that TelBru is eyeing to connect 45,000 people to Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) services within the next three years.

At the current rate of reaching over 1,000 customers a month, and given that over 5,000 customers are currently on the FTTH grid, the reality of reaching the target of 45,000 looks very possible.

Apart from the fibre-optics that are being installed, subsequently replacing the copper wires that are more prone to faults (affecting Internet quality), Mr Kay pointed out that there is more to the Internet than installing cables.

According to him, TelBru is doing its best in sourcing other tools to compliment their current endeavour.

“There are things that we can do and we are looking at those, but we are trying to prioritise to see which one will give us the biggest benefits,” he said.

Though public scepticism is high especially when it comes to TelBru’s Internet services, which have become a sore topic among Bruneians over the past years, Mr Kay assures that over the next six months immediate problems facing Internet users around the country would be addressed.

Following an earlier interview in November last year, where he touched upon improving its human resource, this time around, Mr Kay,emphasised that TelBru has already started investing in equipment to reduce Internet lag.

Apart from rebalancing traffic along Internet routes that were once operating beyond 100 per cent, causing package drops, among what has been introduced is what is known as a caching machine programmed for the Google website with the function to copy data and store them locally to enable future requests for that particular data to be served up faster, he said.

In doing so, this would free up the information superhighway for other data that are being requested from overseas servers, he added.

Currently still on trial, the cache machine has already provided improvements.

“We are very optimistic,” Mr Kay proclaimed, adding that the results from this move would come to light over the next three to six months.

Within this same period, he added, TelBru will be setting up a ‘Point of Presence’ (which is currently nonexistent in Brunei at present) and that this was being negotiated with potential partners located somewhere within the Asia-Pacific region, or even closer.

From this, Mr Kay said: “We can get on the Internet quicker rather than going through third parties, which will enable a quicker response time to our customers from the sites they access.”

Seemingly simple in their approach, especially with the readily available options that can be found across the world, what was emphasised as well is the careful planning that comes with superior connection.

“There needs to be a careful study. We need to pick the right equipment, the right place and whatever is appropriate.” he said.

Since taking the lead, Mr Kay and his team have worked tirelessly to specifically identify what it was that garnered considerably negative feedback and the abovementioned options were derived from the introduction of new non-local faces into the company including a Chief Technical Officer who is responsible for all of TelBru’s networks along with a Chief Information Officer.

“We are reviewing the whole of the Internet, which is one of our prime focuses and our analysis has led us to the conclusion that if we improve these areas, the overall experience will improve significantly,” he said.

Humbly, he did also state that, “it will not solve all our problems, but it will solve quite a number of them”.

Admittedly, what was shared as well were the problems faced by the FTTH team, which included a less-than-ideal planning for the rollout. However, time has been invested to iron out the creases.

-We’ve brought in a number of planners and planning tools to enable us to plan better and therefore, roll out better. The absence of proper data has been a real problem for us so far, and it still is to some extent … but it is getting less and less and will improve once we have the planning in place,” he assured.

What has also changed, he added, is their ‘Standard Operating Procedures’ in addressing faults in the current copper connection.

On the targetted customers for the FTTH, he said, the 45,000 users will hail from all four districts and TelBru has already identified several areas whose inhabitants will be duly notified over the coming weeks.

Noting that the eyed total number of customers is a significant portion of the community, those who will be given priority are heavy Internet users, as well as customers who experience regular faults in their connection, he explained.

At present, the number of TelBru’s Internet customers stands at between 24,000 and 26,000 and an upward trend is being witnessed especially with TelBru’s newest pledge.

He said: “We saw some customers leaving our service because it wasn’t good and they were going to our competitors. But now, we’re seeing them come back because things have improved on our Internet … Not as much as I, or anybody, would like, but things are getting better. Our customers are seeing that things are changing and more and more people are coming every day, every week and we are getting more compliments than complaints.”

According to him, TelBru’s reputation is getting better.

“We behaved like a monopolist in the past, which is not particularly good,” especially with competition that comes in the form of mobile technology, he said. “We can do a lot better and we are improving our systems through IT and we’re bringing more people in who have good experience from the private sector.”

As a continuance to improving their human resource, Mr Kay shared that TelBru will be bringing in 40 fresh graduates on an internship basis who will be introduced to the different departments with the hope that these individuals will one day take the lead, steer the company in a forward-moving motion and ensure its sustainability.

The next three years, apart from reaching the 45,000 goal, will also see the possibilities of investing in other high-speed broadband technologies apart from the FTTH, as well as data centres and cloud services to cater to international clients.