I welcome the efforts of the Federal Government and Ministry of Communication & Digitalisation in purchasing 40 units of Elon Musk’s Starlink Broadband Kits to address some of gaps in connectivity especially in rural harder-to reach communities in Sabah and Sarawak, or even Semenanjung Malaysia to ensure they get connected the basic necessity of internet coverage so that they do not continue to be left behind.
I had a good discussion yesterday with the Minister of Communications and Digital, YB Fahmi Fadzil regarding the needs of these assets in the rural areas especially for it to be used and focused on smaller communities such as longhouses, rural schools with few very students, rural hospital and clinics and even mobile services for rural communities.
He has given his assurance that he will allocate for these Starlink assets in these targeted areas especially in rural clinics and schools in Sarawak and we are in the process of identifying target key areas in neex of immediate connectivity.
I will be working closely with the Deputy Health Minister YB Lukanisman and the Ministry of Health to identify clinics in need as well as the Ministry of Education for schools in need.
The target areas of course prioritise locations that do not have fibre broadband coverage and access to a high-speed fibre broadband network.
The advantage of Starlink besides a low latency connectivity is portability. It is mobile and can be used in those areas harder to be reached logistically especially in important service providers in rural communities such as clinics and schools. There are many of such facilities that do not have access to a broad-band network even though they have existing programs and services that require transmission of data.
With the efforts of both Federal and State Government to fiberalise more areas, these assets, can then be moved further to next location in need, due to its portability.
Again, this Starlink should only be a transition temporary solution and not permanent one as we aim to fully connect and fiberalise Malaysia.
We hope this can serve as an interim solutions for schools, clinics and communities that are already demanding broadband internet but are currently in the process of fiberisation. As satellite internet devices are portable, they can be passed and deployed at the next communities in need, after permanent connectivity is established in the earlier batches.
That is why I applaud the efforts of the Prime Minister in accuring such assets to address internet connectivity in our country especially, in the rural areas, and will work together to ensure it will be utilised and optimised as it is deployed into these urgent areas especially in rural schools and cllinics to fill in the gap and complement on-going government efforts to extend internet coverage to all.
Starlink is a satellite broadband service under SpaceX which uses a constellation of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites. Unlike geostationary satellites which have an average ping of 500ms due to their further distance from Earth, Starlink can provide lower latency (ping) that’s closer to 4G networks.
Satellite broadband service is often deployed in areas where it is currently not economically feasible yet to deploy commercial 4G or fibre broadband access.