Telekom Malaysia has agreed to increase the backhaul or data transmission speed to four terabits per second (4Tbps) in Sarawak by next month.

Chief Minister Datuk Amar Abang Johari Tun Openg announced this in his winding-up speech at the 18th Sarawak State Assembly sitting here today.

The success of Sarawak Digital Economy, he said, rested ultimately on the speed and coverage of the physical infrastructure of cables and fibres or the Digital Highway.

The state, he added had an average speed of up to 100 megabits per second(100 mbgps) per household at densely populated areas and between 20 to 50 mbps in low and sparsely low populated areas which were sufficient for the latest 4G technology.

"In the near future with the desired 5,000 communication towers, we can even migrate to 5G technology with new spectrum allocation," he noted.

"For us to achieve the target of up to 100 megabits per second (100 mbps) per household, we have to ensure there is sufficient speed in the backhaul - the main pipe if you like.

"The current backhaul speed today is 1.3 terabits per second (1.3Tbps). I announced last month that I wanted this speed to be two terabits per second (2Tbps) to make our foray into the Digital Economy Sarawa-wide meaningful," he said, adding Telekom Sarawak had responded graciously to his request for two terabits per second and in fact, increased it to four terabits per second.

Meanwhile, Abang Johari said the problem remained in rural areas where some were currently being penetrated by satellite services which were slow, occasional and very expensive and the average speed in rural areas which had access to the internet was about two to four megabits per second.

He added Sarawak already had 1,200 communication towers but would like this to be increased to a total of 5,000, and had allocated a fund of RM1 billion to get the additional 3,800 set up .

-- BERNAMA