The Minister of Communications and Multimedia, Gobind Singh Deo has recently tweeted that the government is ready to aid Telekom Malaysia in order to reach a solution that is universally beneficial to everyone. This was in response to TM’s statement that was released by the company after it was heavily criticized by MCMC earlier this week.
Below is the said tweet from the minister:
I would like to thank TM for their response and commitment. Look forward to discuss proposals hopefully by next week. Rest assured this govt is prepared to assist wherever possible to achieve a solution which is beneficial to all concerned.https://t.co/Kwi2RJxGWG via @staronline
— GobindSinghDeo (@GobindSinghDeo) November 20, 2018
As a reference, we have included some excerpts from TM’s which was rather elaborate:
Meanwhile, for Streamyx customers who are currently residing in non-unifi areas, we are committed to continuously invest in the best fit for purpose technologies to bring high-speed broadband to them. Where technology permits, we are doubling the Streamyx speed at the same price of their current broadband plan, with upgrades up to 8Mpbs or offering them wireless broadband LTE 4G solutions.
Close to 180,000 of those in non-unifi areas can look forward to receiving this free speed upgrade. We aim to complete this speed upgrading exercise by December 2018.
However, in order to address the remaining 500,000 Streamyx customers, TM is calling for the discussions with the Government to quickly reach a mutually beneficial outcome for these customers.
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We wish to highlight that TM has been continuously investing in its infrastructure – both fibre and copper network – over the years, to provide connectivity and also in order to elevate the experience of both its unifi and Streamyx customers, concurrently. The primary focus is in expanding Malaysia’s high speed broadband coverage.
We have also explained on the limitations of the current copper network and in this respect have been in ongoing engagement with government, ministry, regulator and other stakeholders on how to solve the legacy copper issues affecting Streamyx customers together.
We would like to emphasise that the copper network which is a legacy network, faces many challenges, mainly technological limitations. This is more pronounced for Streamyx customers, whereby the copper network is only able to deliver speeds up to 8Mbps.This requires a longer term and more permanent solution, which will take time to implement and has heavy financial implications.
We look forward to a collaborative win-win approach with the Government to effectively address the challenges faced by Streamyx customers, once and for all. In order to do this, TM looks to accelerate discussions with the Ministry and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) to explore potential collaborative options, various fit-for-purpose technologies as well as optimising existing industry mechanisms in order to deliver a better broadband experience nationwide.
As you might be able to notice from these excerpts, TM has pointed out that technology limitations and financial impact on the company are among the main reason why the company not able to quickly cater customers that still stuck with Streamyx.
However, there is nothing new about these as TM has been pointing them out time and time again. Not only that, the government is well aware of the financial impact based on a statement by Gobind back in May.
Then again, the consumer sentiment is quite clear: the longer the price disparities between fibre-based unifi and legacy Streamyx remains (among many other issues), the louder their voices are going to be. Hence, do expect this saga to continue for quite a while.
Nevertheless, let’s hope that the upcoming discussions between the government and TM will finally lead to a solution that would not only satisfy consumers and most of the parties involved (if not everyone) but would also allow everybody to move on forward.
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