Cyberjaya 3rd September 2019 – The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has issued a statement today to clarify some statements spread through social media with regards to the National Fiberisation and Connectivity Plan (NFCP) announced on 28 August 2019.
These allegations are the NFCP is a mega project, the cost of NFCP has increased from RM1 billion to RM21.6 billion and that a company by the name of OPCOM would be the biggest beneficiary of NFCP.
According to MCMC, NFCP is not a mega project but rather is a much-needed and important plan that sets out strategies, targets and action items that will ensure the availability of robust, pervasive, high quality and affordable digital connectivity for the country.
The first pillar of the implementation of NFCP will be a series of infrastructure projects that will either be funded through the Universal Service Provision (USP) Fund or through commercial means by the relevant Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 (CMA) licensees themselves, that will be undertaken over a period of five (5) years throughout the country and will leverage on different technologies, which among others, include fibre optics, wireless and satellite technologies.
The overall cost of RM21.6 billion is also an estimation, and this figure may change as the NFCP is further refined from time to time.
Meanwhile the second pillar involves setting in place the right policies to facilitate deployment of infrastructure nationwide that will include policies which remove barriers that hinder fast and cost effective infrastructure deployment at state level, optimizing the use of spectrum to ensure better quality mobile broadband, improving the competitive landscape of the industry, promoting infrastructure sharing and other related policies.
Budget 2019 clearly indicates that the Government will implement the NFCP with an initial allocation of RM1 billion. This initial allocation was meant to fund selected infrastructure projects for 2019 to support the NFCP targets, including expanding mobile coverage and providing fibre connectivity to premises which are currently in the initial stages of implementation.
MCMC also added that the NFCP consists of many infrastructure projects, including commercial projects financed by the licensees themselves and these projects will utilize different technologies. Therefore no specific company dealing with a specific technology can be the biggest beneficiary of the NFCP. So it is incorrect to name OPCOM as the biggest beneficiary of NFCP.
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