Article review on The National Broadband Initiative

Foundation of Information and Communication Technology (IMC 401) 1

Article Review

Introduction.

The National Broadband Initiative was initiated by Malaysian Government in 2010.

Broadband refers to telecommunication that provides multiple channels of data over a single

communications medium, typically using some form of frequency or wave division multiplexing.

Broadband access is a vehicle that allows the delivery of an entirely new breed of media services

and communications-oriented applications. In the long run, it is these new services and

applications that will differentiate broadband from dial-up Internet access and give consumers a

reason for subscribing to broadband. In addition, Broadband will not replace traditional media

formats as they exist today. But it will emerge as a new source of fragmentation, siphoning off

enough listeners and viewers to affect established media entities and their long-term growth.

Article Review

1.0 An Overview of an Article

The article, ‘Broadband as engine of growth’ was published in New Straits Times

Newspaper, on 23 March 2010.

2.0 Article’s Objectives

The article was published in public newspaper with an intention to give further

clarifications and explanations to Malaysian, on the initiative, overall. Basically, the article was

written intelligently to describe the impact and revenue of National Broadband Initiative.

3.0 The Discussion

World have embarked on deploying broadband as an engine of growth. Malaysia is one

of the countries that have laid the foundation for a broadband economy. Thus, the Malaysian

Government believes, National Broadband Initiative (hereafter known as NBI) will be benefitting

both social and economic growth, overall. In the article, Prime Minister deems the initiative with a

tremendous improvement in economy segments and will resulted global competitive country’s


Article Review

development and NBI will also connecting Malaysian Communities, to one and another. Future

more, with this initiative, Malaysian will step forward to world’s opportunities. By taking

advantage of NBI, Government assumes that Malaysian could improve their socio-economic

standing by being connected to a great connection of an Internet by transforming from a

traditional connection (dial up) to broadband connections. Furthermore, rural communities which

will be connected via Community Broadband Centers located throughout country will allow them

to gather information, especially on basic services at their fingertips instead of depending on

traditional information provided. In addition, NBI is expecting to bring real impact in the gross

domestic product (GDP) and gross national product (GNP) with a growth on communications and

multimedia industry revenue. Government believes that, by achieving 50 percent household

broadband penetration rate by the end of the year should result a solid contribution in creating

new job from investment from foreign investors by enabling of knowledge based and innovation

driven economy. In addition, NBI will also generated a wide range of economic activities and

global brands benefitting both local small sized enterprise (SMEs), industries and business.

Meaning, SMEs companies will have further forecast to explore and reinvent traditional business

to a global business arena.

Thus, Prime Minister trusted NBI will provide high speed broadband to areas which

potentially with high economic activities and the target is to connect 50 percent of Malaysian

household to broadband by the end of the year. Under the initiative, the speed of 10 Mbps

(megabits per second) and above allocated for economic activity areas and 10 Mbps and below

for general population. Prime Minister also believes that with a speedy access, transfer and

exchange of communication will contribute to development efficiency and productivity of

economics activities, financial transactions and critical decision making, thus delivering the

greater for the well-being of societies, vibrancy of industries, competitiveness of nations and

promoting quadruple-play from traditional triple-play application which comprising voice, data and

video. NIB also may be possible to transport large amounts of information across networks to

any part of the world in very short time. Government conclude Malaysia’s broadband journey

started as a logical follow through of the country ICT development, including initiatives in

computerization, upgrading and digitalization of communications network, the introduction of the

Multimedia Super Corridor in 1996, the advent and phenomenal take-up of internet and IP based

technologies and the introduction of the National Broadband Plan in October 2004. The strategy

accepted under the plan was to address the availability of broadband as an engine of growth and

the digital divide with the objective of providing equitable access to communication services.


Article Review

Conclusion

From the articles, I believe that NBI will be kick start to a tremendous development of IT

communities. NBI will benefit Malaysian in improving socio economy stand and promoting the

growth of Nation’s economy. The implementation of NBI will create tangible impact on GDP

contribution of the country. It will also boost the national competitiveness and attract foreign

investors to Malaysia which will resulted new high value jobs in the ICT sector. In the same time,

the implementation will create spin-off effect in order sector such engineering, local content

development and broadcasting. There is still a lot to be done but broadband is clearly a part and

parcel of Malaysian lifestyle already. Access is still a challenge for rural areas where

infrastructure is still not fully available. Cost is another issue that will have to be addressed over

time but history has shown that costs in the sectors fall sharply over time when the services are

widely available. Therefore, cost is perhaps a self-solving problem as demand increases to a

certain threshold level to allow economies of scale in supply to kick-in. Nevertheless, all

stakeholders, including consumers, have to work very hard to ensure the threshold is reached

fast. The only caveat is that service providers must maintain service quality so that these

consumers get the right experience from the word “go


Article Review

References

1. Broadband as engine of growth. (2010, March 23). New Straits Times, p. 25.