Datuk Seri Dr. Rais Yatim was named Minister for Information, Communications, Arts and Culture in the Cabinet of Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak 12 days ago.
Since then, “Arts” have been dropped from the longish name of his Ministry although the portfolio remains with him.
However, his pronouncements since becoming Minister for Information, Communications and Culture have raised eyebrows and questions whether he is turning back the clock of the information age, as illustrated by the following headlines of one newspaper in the past few days: “Rais warns of legal action against errant private groups and bloggers” (15 April 2009), “Govt wants to ensure Internet not abused” (16 April 2009), “Rais: Do not abuse the Internet” (17 April 2009).
Rais has been in the Cabinet of five Prime Ministers, Tun Razak, Tun Hussein, Tun Mahathir, Tun Abdullah and now Najib.
He will end his Cabinet career in less than glorious terms if he regards his present stint as a Minister for Propaganda and Blogs instead of being a Minister for Broadband.
At yesterday’s launch of Pikom’s (Malaysian IT Industry Association) National ICT Month, the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Datuk Dr. Maximus Ongkili said Malaysia is lagging in its efforts to achieve a 50% broadband penetration by the end of 2010.
He said:
“Things are rather slow. The concern of the broadband industry is that we need to move at a faster rate. The target is to achieve a 50% broadband penetration by next year.
“Currently, we are still at 22%, 26% at the most. It is outside my portfolio. I am looking into the strategy, policy and content but not the infrastructure for the industry.”
Whose baby is it? Of course, Rais who is now the Minister for Communications!
This concern should be expressed by Rais. Unfortunately, he seems to be totally unconcerned and indifferent about the abysmal rollout of broadband and only interested in the rollback of information control like in the years of Mahathir premiership!
Rais must be reminded that we are now in the internet age and he should not try to resurrect the old media controls, which will be completely at cross purpose with the “vibrant, free and informed media” which Najib had committed his administration to as the “new way forward” three days after the latter was sworn in as Prime Minister.
It is most shocking that in his 12 days as Communications Minister, Rais has not a single word for “broadband” which should be his most important and challenging portfolio, especially at a time when there is so much broadband development internationally.
Earlier this month, the Australian government announced a A$43 billion new national broadband plan to provide broadband speeds of 100 Mbps to about 90 per cent of Australian homes, schools, and businesses by 2018. The other 10 per cent will get broadband access via wireless technology.
In the United States, President Barack Obama has provided a US$7.2 billion “broadband” stimulus and begun the process of developing a holistic plan for improving broadband access nationwide.
In the United Kingdom, the government is committed to a Universal Service Obligation to provide broadband to every household with a minimum speed of 2Mbps, although one recent opinion survey revealed that 55% of the population believe 2Mbps will be too slow for a national minimum broadband speed.
What is Malaysia’s national average broadband speed? Nobody is talking about 2Mbps – lucky if 512 or 256kbps without disruptions!
We just cannot compare with the national minimum or average broadband speeds of broadband power houses. Japan and South Korea, for instance, have download speeds of 63Mbps and 49Mbps respectively.
In 1996, when Malaysia announced the Multimedia Super Corridor concept, we were at par with other countries in broadband penetration. Now Malaysia has been left far behind by broadband powerhouses with household broadband penetration, like South Korea (93%), Hong Kong (83.8%), Taiwan (76.8%) and Singapore (100%). Malaysia has only 21%.
These are issues Rais should give top priority, to turn Malaysia into a broadband power, both in broadband penetration rate as well as in broadband speed, if Malaysia is to enhance its competitiveness to take its rightful place in the global arena.
Malaysia will be crippled if we do not have a real Minister for Broadband.
In the era of online high definition video, anything less than 10mbps up/down is just sad.
The rot in Malaysia’s internet connection began under the Nodding Mullah, who apparently has never personally sent a single email in his entire life and has worsened under the new PM. Mistuh Yatim’s title should be “Minister of Narrowband”
What country do you think you’re living in? No government controlled communications medium (all of them, in their entirety, except for Internet which is only partially controlled) tells Malaysians anything about the Internet except that it’s a very bad thing. I knew when I first came here that broadband would be under-developed, as soon as I saw the “Alt+F4 say no to porn” signs on the toll pillars. The rest of the world has come to terms with porn driving the development of the Internet, why must it be so difficult for Malaysia?
If everybody uses the Internet to read Bernama, 56kbit/s is enough!
I notice some of the The Pirate Bay trial reports include a note that Stockholm has broadband at 100MBit/s that costs 11 US Dollars per month. And I bet it actually works too.
We know what to expect from Rais. During his tenure as the Foreign Minister we lost Pulau Batu Putih to Singapore, now we are going to lose internet altogether, ironically he is the right man for the job, UMNO should rejoice.
A govt. who can’t listen to people criticism is a govt in denials.
It would be an eye opener for us if Mr PM could elaborate the selection criteria of ministers for their portfolio. May be KSK could identify a few KPIs for Mr Rice ?
Increased broadband penetration huh! Wow. Another multi-billion dollar contract for the lucky umnoputra and 10% commission for the unlucky one who did not get the contract.
BroadBand became NarrowBand and then quickly narrowed down to NarrowMind. So you see how and precisely where things bottled up.
Why was there no Key Performance Indicator applied to the last broadband roll-out? I’m not sure amongst all the heated rhetoric online, but my 512kbit/s Streamyx rarely provides downloads above 5kilobytes per second, not because of slow traffic but because of packet loss. My DiGi broadband has a theoretical limit of around 27kilobytes per second but reliably gives me downloads above 20 kilobytes per second concurrent with poor performance from Streamyx, so you can rule out international congestion.
If the last broadband project is still broken after so many years, why are they paying the same people for another one? What guarantees have been given that the new network won’t be just as broken, inadequate and overpriced as this one?
If the broadband speed in Japan were to be as slow as that in Malaysia, the (Dis)Honorable Nipponese Minister of Broadband would had committed honorable harakiri long long ago.
Dato Seri Utama Rais Yatim has a doctoral degree in law. Perhaps Dato Seri Utama Rais is an expert in sorting out the draconian laws and will be highly capable in making a recommendation for repellation of them. We are probably expecting too much about the broadband from Dato Seri Utama Rais since the word “broadband” had never been invented when Rais was already the powerful Menteri Besar of Negeri Sembilan during 1970s.
Nevertheless, we just sincerely pray that Dato Seri Utama Rais will practice the true democracy in his capacity as a learned political leader and will not try to abuse his learned knowedge for adding much more draconian laws for purpose of tightening up the governmental control on the Freedom of Speech via internet emails and internet blogs!
“Rais warns of legal action against errant private groups and bloggers”
Is this a democracy or a monarchy? Who does Rais think he is? The people’s representative or a hereditary king? Let’s throw out BN and have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
In Bolehland, everything is slow which shouldn’t be the case. With this new minister in charge of information, there should be unhesitating efforts to speed up Broadband in our country and not talk of anything else.
When are we going to learn and be on par with others in all other fields of technology and progress? This minister should walk the talk and not talk the walk!
‘“Rais warns of legal action against errant private groups and bloggers”
Is this a democracy or a monarchy?’ (ekompute)
ekompute is raising a question about Dato Seri Utama Dr. Rais Yatim’s political inclination on the issues of democracy versus monarchy. As far as I know, Dr. Rais is a pro-royalist politician and he always maintains a good rapport with Negeri Sembilan Royal Family. Democracy is probably something which Dr. Rais took a long way to learn through his personal experience in quiting Umno and joining Parti Semangat 46 and later dissolving Parti Semangat 46 together with Tengku Razaleigh Hamzah and rejoining Umno.
Since Dr. Rais had been residing in the Opposition Party for quite a long period of times, it makes people wonder whether Dr. Rais’s past experience as an Opposition member would have really turned him into a much more democratic person.
No matter what, Dr. Rais shall not take Dr. Mahathir’s footprint in fonding of invoking the draconian law to detain people for no reason. Surely, it is not something very desirable for any politician to get himself involved in invoking the draconian law for unreasonable arrest and then be labelled as “dictator” in the history textbook in the future.
It will not be practical for the Malaysian people to expect a breakthrough from Dr. Rais about the advent in broadband technology since Dr. Rais is not an expert in ICT. However, the Malaysian people shall have the discretion to demand Dr. Rais to give due respect to the spirit of law in relation to Freedom of Speech since Dr. Rais holds a doctoral degree in Law.
Perhaps Dr. Rais should make proposal to the Parliament for repellation of the draconian laws in relation to information censorship and internet control in order to promote the higher degree of freedom of speech in Malaysia for the sake of democracy. A politician shall earn his respect from the common people by listening to the people and not by suppressing or curtailing the freedom of speech of the people. I hope Dr. Rais can take my advice and be ready to serve as a respectable political leader at his senior age which is full of political wisdom!
Rais Yatim is only interested in censoring the contents rather than developing the broadband infrastructure. Rather than having better infrastructure for zipping more “lies”, he would probably slow development.
I dont think he understands the issues of the broadband and information age. MSC, Mdec etc will be put in the drawer. Coupled with a useless Minister of Technology and Innovation, Malaysia will retrograde to the stone age.
If Dato Seri Utama Dr. Rais Yatim can prove that he is a much more trustworthy leader than Najib, then Dr. Rais will probably turn out to be a qualified candidate of high performance potential for the post of Prime Minister when sooner or later Najib has to be removed by the joint effort of two competing forces interacting within Umno itself, namely Tun Dr. Mahathir’s camp and Khairy Jamaluddin’s camp.
Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin will eventually be ruled out as a competent candidate for the post of the Prime Minister since Muhyiddin is only contented with the post of Deputy Prime Minister due to his inferiority complex arising from his poor command of English.
Rais should be considered lucky to be in the cabinet.Anything he does will be his last.He should not look backward and see his past glory.We will be sending his report to the PM.Good Luck.
Stone age mentality still prevails among BN goons. The age internet revolution has arrived long ago. MSC was supposed to the new age economy of the country, Malaysia supposed to be hub of Multimedia Technology. Today Bangalore INDIA is one the best IT hubs in the world, Japan, China, Korea,Singapore all have passed by us. Why , because we still want to control, just how stupid can we get?
Until today, the Government has not pressed Telekom Malaysia for the final leg connectivity which they control. This monopoly is the kind of strait jacket mentality which the present government unable to discard. No other internet operator else is allowed to have their own international connectivity. That why, internet / broadband growth is stunted in Malaysia.
ISP providers are limited too a few companies instead of opening them up, lowering the cost of internet. The cost of internet in Malaysia is still high because the inefficient market conditions.
The internet age in Malaysia can be compared to Mideast or North Korea.
How about banning political parties from owning national newspapers so that they can report news more fairly. Just take a look at this:
http://malaysian-politics.aseanpedia.com/Press_freedom_in_Malaysia
A first-time tourist to Malaysia, on reading the New Straits Times dated 15 March 2009, would no doubt come to the conclusion that Malaysia is a one-party state. Elections in Malaysia are like boxing matches, with the opponents tied up and the referee appointed by them. Even then, they lose. So now they want to ban the blogs because they think they lose because of it, and not because of their arrogance. If the blogs work to their advantage, they will even amend the Constitution, if need be.
What this man “say and do” is much dependent on whether he is in UMNO or out of UMNO, in Cabinet or out of Cabinet. There is no enduring principle in him only his survival and permanent interest. In this country almost every damn thing is abused, with internet abuse probably being of least ill consequence and yet this has become his immediate priority.
Rias, you have not changed an iota from that narrow mindedness, and so are most of your colleagues in UMNO and BN.
It is the aim of Malaysia to become a Developed Country by 20/20.We do not have to go far. The internet speed in Cnada is 10 thimes that of Malaysa. On Monday morning 20th April I was at JPJ Petaling Jaya and the computers were offline – whatever that means.
When broadband was under the now non existance KTAK, screamyx got from bad to worst. The total monopoly of landing site is not only killing broadband growth and slowing down available speed because same bandwidth get resell many more times over.
TM monopoly the landing sites and last mile. The two most important part of internet service.
Other ISP can have best fibre up and down the country like Time dotcom or fibrerail or petronet or tnb’s fibre etc. It means nothing.
HSBB roll out moving to slow
3 G and wimax operators crawling
Rais need to review the ministry strategy..
Don’t expect anything from Dr. Rais Yatim. As far as I am concerned, he is a doublespeak virtuoso.
When he was in Semangat 46, he wrote a treatise on the evils of ISA. When he rejoined UMNO, he made a 180° U-turn. Just a few days back he was quoted as saying that the ISA is humane in its treatment of detainees.
Next, when Malaysia lost Pulau Putih to Singapore due to the lazy cut-and-paste method of gathering solid evidences, Dr Rais Yatim was so proud to declare that it was a win-win situation.
Now, he is warning bloggers against abusing the Internet. Have it occurred to him that Utusan Malaysia, TV3, Berita Harian, the New Straits Times and the Star have been spewing lies and distortion and racial divide? He should be respecting the alternative media because the BN could had mercifully spared themselves of the horror of losing their customary 2/3 majority and five states.
Well, Rais continue to believe your own distortion reality and see the BN becoming the all-time best bedtime stories for the history books. The only way that you can stop the Internet is to dismantle the telecommunication network. But then Malaysia will descend into the Stone Age.
Can you imagine someone who prides himself as an intellectual?
The Malaysian Insider recently commented that Rais Yatim had just come out of communist China! Rais Yatim should stop wasting time trying to control the Internet. The era of suppressing free-flow of information is by-gone and today every government in the world is faced with the invincible challenge of information inundation.
Rais Yatim should learn from Lim Guan Eng so as to bring free wireless Internet to the people.
http://limguaneng.com/index.php/2009/01/21/wirelesspenang-is-no-longer-a-dream/
If Lim Guan Eng could re-invent Penang with the power of the Internet, Rais Yatim, being Minister for Information, Communications, Arts and Culture, should ‘think big’ to re-invent MALAYSIA with the same power of the Internet! He should take note that countries which allow free-flow of information are among the WEALTHIEST countries in the world (proven by statistics).
Recently a professor from UK came to our college and put his hands on ‘Malaysian Internet’. After waited for 20 minutes, seeing no picture cropped up on the screen, he just walked away – what an embarrassment to the college! He later told us that in UK the same content would have cropped up on the screen within few seconds – it seems that Rais Yatim has a big job to do in order to get things fixed!
Fortunately not all is gloom and doom for Malaysia; lately Packet-One has come up with a 10Mbps WiMax Internet which is being offered at a monthly rate of RM149. I just wish that they can lower the price to at around RM80 so that more families can afford it.
Malaysia has a bit of everything but not all for everyone. Whatever she has is just enough to show off to the world but not enough to be made used of by all the Malaysians. The very second Malaysia entered into the internet age is the very second Malaysia is designed for change. Back then, the very big bosses should have known. But they did not predict change would happen this fast. It will be faster if they decide to upgrade all the services and all the equipments. By then, Malaysia should have a Democratic party, a Republican party, other parties and independents. No more opposition because the opposition also loves Malaysia. Once you enter the internet age, you cannot be a traditional conservative anymore. This is because there will be more interaction between people. You cannot stop anyone from having their own opinions and having their own thoughts and having these opinions and thoughts expressed openly. No doubt you will feel threatened and wish to punish. But you cannot. Because everyone will know what is actually going on. You said that internet is bad. It is equally bad for you to be bad without the internet.
the screamyx international line has been really bad since last year. i am so angry. have made count less call to 100 number. i think its time for massive street protests.
Carboncopy, no need for protest or even call 100, help is on its way! In keeping with “Performance Now!”, the FTTH contract has gone to Mukhriz. You see? We will be a developed country in no time at all!