CELLULAR coverage for areas with population in Sarawak now stands at 85 per cent, an increase of 13 per cent since 2008.
Broadband penetration rate to households had increased to 54.5 per cent. It was only 13.6 per cent in 2008.
Public Utilities Minister Datuk Amar Awang Tengah Ali Hasan said in order to increase broadband penetration in the state to be on par with the national figure, a new fibre optic network expansion project spanning 1,237 kilometres and covering Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy (SCORE) areas was being implemented.
This project is expected to be fully completed in the first quarter of next year.
“As announced in the federal Budget 2014, a total of 1,000 new telecommunication towers will be built in the next three years, and there would be a total of RM1.8 billion for the second phase of the high speed broadband project.
“The state government is targeting at least 120 new towers to be built starting next year and is applying for high speed broadband to be extended to other cities in Sarawak,” he said during his winding-up speech for his ministry at the State Legislative Assembly yesterday.
Responding to an issue raised by Violet Yong (DAP-Pending), Awang Tengah said the inception of Sacofa Sdn Bhd by the state government was to provide common sharing of basic infrastructure to meet the requirements of all service providers through proper planning, cost-effectiveness and equal access.
“Sacofa has never been an approving authority but merely a ‘one-stop centre’ to manage these common facilities. The current scope includes the management of telecommunication structures, submarine and on-land fibre optic network and wayleave.”
Besides managing the telecommunication structures, he said Sacofa operated the submarine cable system from Buntal in Kuching to Mersing in Johor, with a distance of 1,000 kilometres and on-land fibre optic network spanning from Kuching to Lawas with a distance of 3,000 kilometres.
“In the last three years, Sacofa has enhanced its facilities by implementing its fibre-to-the-tower (FTTT) project, where eventually more than 500 towers will be connected with at least 622 megabits per second of bandwidth capacity. That will enable service providers to bring the ultimate solution for broadband connectivity to provide seamless, reliable and expandable services.”
Thus, he said, the contention that Sacofa had lost tract of its names or merely focusing on towers was untrue.
Awang Tengah stated that it was always the state’s vision to transform the state into a clean, ecologically balanced, and beautiful state,
“Arising from that, Sacofa was tasked to systematically erect towers, taking into consideration the requirements of the various telecommunication companies (telcos) and encourage sharing of such towers to avoid the proliferation of towers built individually by all telcos.
“We can expect fewer tall and bulky towers to be built in the urban areas in future as a result of this sharing exercise.”
He said currently Sacofa was embarking on a project to construct mini structures in order to meet Telcos’ coverage requirement for implementing their long term evolution (LTE) technology.
“To enable LTE equipment installed on such mini structures to carry high speed broadband capacity, the structures have to be fiberised.
“In built up areas, fiberisation is preferably through underground ducting rather than overhead cables. In order to minimise damage to existing roads, the micro trenching method will be deployed.”