Citing the newly elected Communications and Digital Minister Fahmi Fadzil, the announcement will likely revolve around Internet and mobile charges. Bernama’s report also said that the announcement might benefit those that are within the B40 and M40 income groups. Communications and Digital Minister, Fahmi Fadzil. [Image: KKD / Facebook.]This does not come as a surprise, given how the minister has previously mentioned that one of his priorities once he assumed the office is to find ways to reduce the cost of Internet and mobile services. In addition to that, issues regarding coverage are being looked into as well. Fahmi who is also the MP for Lembah Pantai since 2018, has also asked the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) to thoroughly look into solutions that need to be taken to ensure that service disruptions do not happen too often.
Based on our quick survey, the base price for a monthly prepaid plan with data capability that one can obtain today from six major Malaysian telcos is between RM15 to RM35. The data quota provided by these plans starts from 6GB depending on specific offerings while some of them also have unlimited data quota although they do come with a speed cap which limits the connection speed to as low as 3Mbps. As for fibre-based home broadband, the 30Mbps base plans from TM and Maxis cost RM89 per month although one can obtain a similar plan from Celcom for slightly lower at RM80. The base fibre plans from other ISPs such as Digi, Astro Fibre, Time Internet, and TNB’s Allo are priced slightly higher at between RM90 to RM99 but they do offer much faster speed of between 50Mbps to 100Mbps.
