Connectivity crucial for rural consumers: Consumers Front of Sabah
Published on: Friday, June 02, 2023
Nordin said connectivity in rural and remote areas is a challenge because most of today’s technologies are restricted to coverage areas whose radius is below 10km. - Reuters pic for illustration only
Kota Kinabalu: The Consumers Front of Sabah (CFOS) hopes the government guarantees that rural and remote areas of Sabah will receive basic coverage and delay-tolerant communication.
President Nordin Thani said unlike their urban counterparts, rural consumers should be able to switch between the Mid-Band Spectrum and the Low Band Spectrum.
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“Currently, 5G operates using a maximum 4G 2.6GHz frequency which is also known as the Capacity Layer or C-Band.
“The government chose this spectrum as they believed it is an ideal layer at the moment because it can provide connections to a radius of several miles which is ideal for populated areas. “What is really important to rural and remote area consumers is connectivity.
Perhaps using the Low-Band Spectrum operating at 700MHz is ideal for rural areas too or low population density if the government decides to provide 5G connectivity to them.
“If this materialises, the long laggard in providing mobile connectivity in some of the rural areas could be solved bringing in economic growth and balanced regional development,” he said.
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Nordin said connectivity in rural and remote areas is a challenge because most of today’s technologies are restricted to coverage areas whose radius is below 10km.
“In this case, populated areas will benefit from the specified radius areas,” he said.
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He was commenting on a recent statement by Minister of Communication and Digital (KKD) Fahmi Fadzil that the Ministry hoped a network-sharing model between telcos could start next month.
The government targeted to achieve 80 per cent of 5G population coverage by the end of 2023 focusing on populated areas first because 5G in rural and remote areas requires a high investment.
“At the end of the day, what the consumers in Sabah hope for is reliability, consistency, and highly secure mobile, data, voice connectivity, and network quality so that they would not be left out of this new digital world,” he added.
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