Malaysia has the third largest gross domestic product in Southeast Asia, both in total and per capita, but Speedtest’s Global Index ranks it sixth in mobile data speed regionally and 83rd in the world.
While Malaysian broadband speeds fare slightly better in Southeast Asia, at third place, this rank is slightly misleading as home WiFi speeds in Thailand and Singapore are more than double the average speeds recorded in Malaysia and are among the fastest in the world.
Shaun Edward Cheah, executive director of the Malaysian International Chamber of Commerce and Industry, called this disparity “embarrassing,” and said it is the product of poor investment practices by telecommunication companies.
He said the issue was in not having enough ports, causing information to get backed up and delayed when too many people use the system at one time.
“If you imagine a toll plaza with lots of cars, during off-peak hours when there aren’t many cars, a five-booth toll plaza will do. But during peak hours, those five booths will cause a massive jam.
“It’s about investing to instal more toll booths basically.”
Richard Record, lead economist at World Bank Group, said Malaysia’s lack of adequate access to high quality internet was wasting the potential of those left wanting since “it’s hard to write up a resume on a smartphone and not easy to rely on a mobile connection to run a business”.
Slow mobile speeds compound the matter, he said, adding that this was a worrying trend given the country’s aspirations for a digital future built on e-commerce, automation and artificial intelligence.
He said that reliable connectivity was becoming increasingly critical for businesses as coordination, people management, transactions and analytics were quickly becoming automated.
“As the world globalises and digitises on the back of the internet, such constraints can prove damaging to firms’ and a country’s competitiveness.”
SL Rajesh, a fellow at the International Association for Counterterrorism and Security Professionals, said relying on lacklustre connectivity made company infrastructures fragile.
“In the process of automating software, you need powerful internet services to enable the AI to function,” he said. “If the internet is slow, all the processes that the company relies on will be slow as well.”
The three agreed that existing fibre infrastructure needed to be improved by optimising the current system to improve urban speed and consistency and by expanding the cables’ reach into rural areas.
Cheah said home WiFi could be made redundant by 5G as it was tipped to produce faster speeds than broadband and presented an interesting alternative plan if cable expansion or port installation were deemed unworkable.
Building 5G-enabled cellular towers would leave a smaller footprint than laying cables and would require less regulatory approval as it is a relatively minor project, he said.