ICT SECTOR IN MALAYSIA

ICT Sector in Malaysia
The last two decades in Malaysia has been considered to be the era of wireless communications being led by two major trends: the outburst of wireless access communications - offering mobility to the telephone users and the mobile multimedia, and the increasing number of mobile communications subscribers.

Broadband penetration rate has increased from 10,9 for every 100 households in 2006, to 33,2 as of March 3, 2010, whereas the mobile phone penetration rate has breached the 100% threshold (per 100 inhabitants) in Q1 this year, and expected to reach 108,1% by Q1 2010 (Q4 2009: 106,2%)

Transformation to Internet Protocol Era
Meanwhile, the physical work for the High Speed Broadband (HSBB) project has begun in May 2009, with its retail services expected to be rolled out in some parts of the country by March 24, 2010. This RM 11,3 billion project, which is part-funded by the Malaysian government, is supposed to offer bandwidth at network speeds of 10Mbps where 1,3 million premises in the country will be covered under the project within the next 2-3 years.

This project is widely seen as instrumental in transforming the country's telecommunications infrastructure into the Internet Protocal era, where households and businesses will be getting broadband network access for triple play services (voice, video and internet). For example, there is a plan to move the country into digital TV era, with analogue swiff-off planned in 2015.

The overall Malaysian telecommunications industry has a market size of more than RM 40 million, whereas the network telecommunication market is said to be worth around RM 5 billion with a compounded annual growth rate of more than 50%. This sector will continue to represent one of the most important arenas of research and expansion in the ICT industry in Malaysia.