Internet in Malaysia

Since its beginnings in 1995, the Internet in Malaysia has become the main platform for free discussion in the country's otherwise tightly controlled media environment.^[1] As of Q1 2017, Malaysia had broadband penetration rates of 103.6% (per 100 inhabitants) and 81.8% (per 100 households).^[2]

History

Malaysia began its Internet services in 1987 with MIMOS (Malaysian Institutes of Microelectronics Systems) as the sole provider. MIMOS was first established in 1985 to provide critical infrastructure for the advancement of the local electronics industry. The first Internet service in Malaysia, known as the Rangkaian Komputer Malaysia (RangKoM), connects all the universities in Malaysia to MIMOS to enable researchers from the universities to communicate with each other. The main applications used at that time were e-mails and electronic forums (such as Usenet) and because the main users were mainly academicians and researchers, the information being exchanged were mostly academic related. The conception of RangKoM allowed MIMOS and the universities to create the local talent pool in computer networks which at that time was a very new subject area in Malaysia.

In 1992, the Joint Advanced Research Integrated Network (

Datacraft Asia provided the

The year 1995 is considered the beginning of the Internet age in Malaysia. The growth in the number of Internet hosts in Malaysia began around 1996. The country's first

In 2005 the National Public Policy Workshop (NPPW) proposed a strategy to increase the uptake of Information and communications technology (ICT) and the Internet. Among the outcomes of the NPPW was the High Speed Broadband initiative launched in 2010. As of July 2012 Internet users in Malaysia reached 25.3 million. Out of that number, there are 5 million broadband users, 2.5 million wireless broadband users and 10 million 3G subscribers.^[7]

In January 2013,

Speed

As of September 2023, Malaysia's average internet speed for fixed broadband is 100.57 Mbit/s, ranking it 41st in the world. Average speed for mobile connection speed has also gone up to 61.50 Mbit/s, ranking 41st overall.^[8]

For this market analysis in Q3 2023, TIME dot com was the fastest fixed broadband provider among top providers in Malaysia, with a speed up to 110.23 Mbit/s. U Mobile is the fastest mobile operator among Malaysia's top providers, with speeds of up to 39.40 Mbit/s in 4G network.^[9]

Access technologies

Cellular data

In 2019, the government of Malaysia started trials of 5G network,^[10] which will be officially rolling out by the end of this year on Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya and Cyberjaya.^[11]

All ISP are closedown the 3G network nationwide on 31 December 2021. But Digi extended the 3G network shutdown in Northern (Perak , Penang , Kedah , Perlis) and Central (WP.KL / Putrajaya / Selangor) to Jan 3 / Jan 6 2022 respectively because of flood.^[12]

5G services in Malaysia was launched on 15 December 2021, and the first run

Telekom Malaysia Bhd has spent about RM1.9 billion, with the inclusion government funds amounting to RM990 million in the installation of high-speed broadband services throughout Malaysia.[15] The four initial areas that will be covered by high speed broadband services, that is being launched in March 2010 are Shah Alam, Subang Jaya, Taman Tun Dr Ismail and Bangsar.^[16]

The benefits announced with the implementation of high speed broadband include smoother e-commerce activities, Internet-based health services, voice over IP (VoIP) communications, web surfing that contains detailed pictures and graphics, as well as faster data downloads. It has been promised that video-streaming will be smoother and Internet Protocol television (IPTV) could take off in Malaysia.

Fiber to the x connections are provided by:

Hotspot

Currently discontinued hotspot services

Internet censorship in Malaysia

On 30 May 2011, the Malaysian government started to ban some websites, mostly file sharing websites;^[27][28] this is despite a promise not to censor the Internet made by the sixth prime minister of Malaysia, Najib Razak.^[29]

JENDELA Program

During the Movement Control Order (MCO) that was imposed to curb the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, Malaysia's internet traffic has increased by 30% to 70%, while the internet speed has dropped by 30% to 40%.^[30] Therefore, the Government of Malaysia launched the JENDELA Program (Jalinan Digital Negara).

The program will be the national digital communication enhancement platform under the 12th Malaysia Plan (2021–2025) that will be implemented in two phases:

Phase 1 (2020 – 2022):

Phase 1, which started from 2020 to 2022, will involve optimising existing resources and infrastructure for both mobile and fixed connectivity by:

• Expanding 4G mobile broadband coverage from 91.8% to 96.9% in populated areas;
• Increasing mobile broadband speeds from 25 Mbit/s to 35 Mbit/s; and
• Enabling as many as 7.5 million premises to access gigabit speeds with fixed broadband services.

This will also involve the gradual switch-off/sunset of 3G networks until the end of 2021, allowing further upgrades to 4G networks as well as strengthening the foundation for 5G networks.

Phase 2 (Beyond 2022):

• Phase 2 of JENDELA involves addressing the remainder of the digital divide not covered under Phase 1, primarily utilising FWA and other fit-for-purpose technologies, as well as priming the nation's transition to 5G; which will take place once action plans to build a robust 4G and fibre platform under Phase 1 are achieved.^[31]

This also means that Malaysia's 3G network will gradually be closed. If only 2G/3G network coverage is available in some areas, only 2G networks will be available after the 3G network is closed, which will affect consumers’ experience.

Therefore, the current priority of the Malaysian government is to increase 4G network coverage, from 91.8% of Malaysia's 4G coverage to 96.9%.

In addition, they plan to increase the mobile network speed of mobile phones from 25 Mbit/s to 35 Mbit/s.

They will also ensure that 83% premises nationwide will have access to

In order to ensure that users using 4G to make calls will not fall back to 2G without 3G network coverage,

For a long time, there has been criticism^[by whom?] surrounding the international routing of Malaysian telecommunications companies. One example is Telekom Malaysia (TM), which faces a cumbersome connection process when linking to a server located in mainland China. To reach China Telecom, for instance, Telekom Malaysia's data packets have to travel through Europe and connect to Points of Presence (PoPs) for Chinese telecommunications companies before finally reaching the China backbone network. This routing method significantly degrades latency and connection quality for TM users attempting to connect to Chinese servers.^[32]

Additionally, Telekom Malaysia's routing to certain Cloudflare IP addresses leaves much to be desired. Despite the implementation of Anycast IP, most TM users are redirected to Osaka, Japan, or Hong Kong, China before being connected to the Cloudflare PoP in either of those locations. This routing practice leads to a subpar user experience.^[33]

Furthermore, there is a persistent issue of internet congestion between Malaysia and Singapore data centers, particularly during the afternoon to midnight period. This congestion directly affects users accessing platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Telegram, Instagram, gaming servers, and voice servers that have their servers hosted in Singapore. The severity of the COVID-19 pandemic in Malaysia, which has prompted the government to encourage citizens to work from home, has exacerbated the problem of congested networks for Telekom Malaysia's international connections. To compound matters, TM users have voiced complaints about the degradation of the quality of service, which have been consistently ignored by the company. Reports submitted by users to the Malaysia Communication and Multimedia Commissioner have also failed to yield any response from the authorities.^[34]

See also

• Censorship in Malaysia
• History of communications in Malaysia
• National Broadband Initiative (Malaysia)
• Telecommunications in Malaysia

References