The Malaysian Government injected over RM400 Million into the infrastructure of the internet infrastructure under the 9th Malaysia Plan to facilitate the Knowledge Based Economy and to boost education standard.However, this is far less than the US$9 Billion spent by the city state of Singapore to bring the broadband to 100Mbps speeds. In comparison, it's far from the required amount needed to boost the exisiting infrastructure in Malaysia for high speed internet. And when we say High Speed Internet, speeds over 10 Mbps are expected.
In Malaysia, there are 3 camps in the broadband industry, namely the wired, wireless and the cellular. The incumbent Telekom Malaysia controls the Wired Broadband although MAXIS also provides Landlines to the residential areas in Kuala Lumpur via fiber optic POTS Splitters. The existing speed is said to be 1.0 Mbps and in some areas near the telephone exchange are lucky enough to be served with 4Mbps. However, plain ADSL stops there despite the e-Metro services in the high density commercial areas providing up to 10Mbps to offices using dedicated SDSL system or fiber optic system.
Then we have the cellular operators providing 3G and HSDPA connections through either the mobile phone or a dedicated modem in major areas of Malaysia and where full coverage is not possible, falls back into EDGE or even the low end GPRS technology. Although it's a very much controversial, the incumbent TM Touch (now Celcom Mobile denominated as MY CELCOM in the mobile phones) holds the largest network coverage of 92% in the peninsular Malaysia literally piggy backing on existing infrastructure points and towers that are made available to Telekom Malaysia, their parent company and as the saying goes, where ever you see a phone line going through, you will get reception. Although Celcom holds the number of licenses including CDMA, UMTS, GSM and AMPS, these technologies are now put into GSM and W-CDMA with TDMA allocated to Telekom Malaysia where phone lines are not economically feasable to be fitted to the location due to the remote density of the customer. This is found in border areas of Kedah, Perak and Kelantan and in certain areas where the exploration camps are concentrated (FELDA and FELCRA areas included).
MAXIS being the major competitor from CELCOM, had been in business since 1980s through Binariang 012 has the second largest coverage in the GSM and PCN system after they bought over TimeCel. With 3G coverage in most cities, the biggest threat to Celcom is MAXIS, with a like for like package offered by CELCOM. However, Digi does not take competition as serious as these guys as they only have approximately 60% of reliable HSDPA coverage. Digi, not being locally owned has their license restricted to just EDGE and HSDPA for their internet.
Then we have the Wireless Internet provided through WiMAX. Green Packet P1 offers WiMAX services in the KLANG VALLEY, Johor Baru and Penang Island and Mainland. Although there are numerous operators like AMAX, RedTone and Jaring, these operators have not fully gone into full scale competition other than AMAX as they require repeaters that goes on top of people's houses which caused outcries by the residents due to the health concerns and ailments caused by these repeaters. Being Malaysia, it is known that operators tend to over power their stations above the legal limit.
As for WiFi, many can gain access even at home using baseband technology such as provided by WiNET in Kulim and Penang. Mainly in densely populated areas, these base band WiFi are typically WIFI Building to Building repeaters emitting less than 500mW and distributed just like a high gain WiFi Access Point you use in a coffee shop.
Another technology which is said to be the cross of a Wireless and Cellular is the 4G iZZi internet with a modem/phone device and is currently in Kuala Lumpur areas only for about RM128 a month with 12 months upfront payment.
In terms of pricing, they do not give value for money (fair usage) with ADSL costing RM66/mth for 1Mbps, RM68 for Celcom 384kbps, and for Unlimited Internet (1Mbps and above) these get more pricy as Celcom charges RM98, Maxis for RM99 (capped to 3GB) and Digi with the highest rate of RM188. This, in comparison to the person on the street wages of about RM40 a day is pretty steep when in Singapore, it cost far less than that. Of course post paid customers in CELCOM get broadband for nearly nothing when they subscribe to the RM148 plan with Blackberry Internet Service. As for the WiMAX pricing, prices are in the range of RM148 plus registration and setup fees of about RM150 for P1 and pay and go with WiNET for about RM50 a month as they just need you to have your WiFi on.
However, the state of the Broadband is still to be desired as intermittent disruptions and network outages are common here in Malaysia. Something they need to look at seriously. But given a few more years, they will get their act together as they do not want to be shamed by Indonesia with 15 times their size and reliable connectivity everywhere.