4,000 WiFi Villages To Be Set Up By End Of 2012

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 22 (Bernama) -- About 4,000 WiFi villages are expected to be set up nationwide by end of 2012, Information, Communications and Culture Minister Dr Rais Yatim said on Tuesday. He said currently, there were only 1,400 WiFi villages in the country mostly in states of Perlis, Sabah and Sarawak. "We are also in the process of building electronic towers in Sabah and Sarawak, therefore our big enrolment drive to create Malaysia as an internet community is there now. "At the same time, we will give opportunities for small and medium enterprises to register with the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) via online to carry out this project," he said at the question-and-answer session after launching the Get Malaysian Business Online (GMBO) organised by Google Malaysia, here Tuesday. He said an average cost of this project for each village was about RM25,000 to RM32,000. (US$1=RM3.17) Rais said the villages would be provided with the normal computerising system with broadband facility which was free of charge for the first three months while a minimum of RM10 per month would be charged subsequently. In order to expand the utilisation, he said an educational process in terms of sharing knowledge and experiences by relevant agencies including Google were crucial to further increase the performance of online business in the country. "What is lacking is the systematic educational system to teach our young and older generation how to do business online in a manner that it is a culture with great returns besides garnering confidence," he said. He suggested that they should have tie-ups with national Radio Television Malaysia (RTM), TV3 and also paid television station, Astro in organising activities pertaining to small and medium online businesses. So far, Rais pointed out that there were not many complaints received on crime involving online transaction in the country in which the value of online business using credit card was actually the main stay now. "Once the Malaysian Personal Data Protection Act 2010 comes into operation next year, I think this business field will be better equipped, safe guarded and even better than before," he added. -- BERNAMA Malaysia