MIRI: The government, through Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Communication (MCMC) has spent RM1.5 billion to erect communication towers in Sarawak from 2008 until this year.
MCMC Sarawak Regional Office director Roslan Mohamad said despite the amount spent, it is still insufficient as the state covers a huge area and has 12 divisions.
“Sarawak is very big and it still needs more communication towers in order to give complete coverage.
“We need to have communication towers in all the 12 divisions in order to fully serve the whole state,” he said at the closing ceremony of Miri Mobile Content Workshop 2015 at Miri Community College on Thursday evening.
He added that MCMC will continue to identify areas in need of communication towers in effort widen cellular coverage and internet accessibility.
MCMC is also looking to increase the number of 1Malaysia Internet Centres here.
“Currently, there are only seven 1Malaysia Internet Centres in Miri. In Beluru (Bakong) alone, there are 700 members, so there is a need for more of such centres so that more can benefit from the service,” he said.
The four-day workshop was participated by 23 members of Miri Mobile Phones Associations and Computer Sales and Services Association.
It was fully sponsored and organised by MCMC and Multimedia Development Corporation (MDEC) in collaboration with Saberkas Miri.
Present to officiate the closing ceremony of the workshop was Assistant Minister of Communications, Datuk Lee Kim Shin.
In his address, Lee said the workshop was the participants’ first step into the career of mobile content industry which promises a new revenue stream for businesses.
“The mobile content industry offers us a chance to create new revenue streams for business and for the country. It also offers us the chance to project our culture and national identity to the world.
“If we do not nurture our local content industry in time, our communications and media networks will be dominated by foreign content which couldn’t care less about our national aspirations,” he said adding that the industry has strong economic and social implications.
He pointed out that the in the future, content delivery will be the main source of revenues for network operators.
“As such, network operators or app store are constantly on the lookout for killer content to help speed up the take up of their services and grab a bigger slice of the cake.
“By bringing this workshop to Miri, we tap on the local peoples’ skills especially in Sarawak, to develop local mobile app for Malaysians to use and optimistically, many more mobile app to come that can accomplish recognition globally,” he said.
The workshop offered a comprehensive course on how to start building and deploying applications for Android phones and tablets using the Java programming language.
Starting with the installation of the required developers tools, including Eclipse and the Android SDK, the course covers how to build the user interface, work with local data, integrate data from the accelerometer and other sensors, as well as deploy finished applications to the Android market.
Also present at the closing ceremony were MDec senior executive Mohd Asrul Sulaiman and Miri Community College director Shafie Abdul Rahman.