| Siti Hajar |
TELBRU, the country’s telecommunications provider, is setting its sights on further providing the nation with even faster Internet by the end of 2017 with the aim to increase speeds to 10Mbps from the current average of 8.7Mbps.
In an interview with the Weekend Bulletin yesterday, TelBru Chief Executive Officer David Kay explained that the roll out is expected to reach 45,000 households and businesses next year adding to the current total of 36,000.
The improvement, he said, will place Brunei at least close to being on par with the likes of other Asian countries such as South Korea in terms of connectivity.
The success that TelBru has experienced over the recent years, he shared, has given the company a fresh perspective in the goals that it can achieve with the 10Mbps among the biggest milestones in its corporatisation history.
“We’ve never dreamed of this,” said Kay. “We had so many problems at the time we weren’t thinking about the future,” and it was only within the last three to 12 months that TelBru’s future was looking brighter.
TelBru CEO, David Kay, during yesterday’s interview. – AZROL AZMI
Work to realise this initiative is still ongoing with infrastructural repairs still in need of attention. But despite the challenges, “the target is still on track,” though sourcing contractors to take on the project still remains a slight issue, which is also being addressed.
The milestone will also include subscribers that are still on the copper network depending on quality but the CEO explained that most of the country would already be on fibre by the time the target date approaches.
With a strong momentum underway supported by the company’s drive to make profit through customer-care and quality service, the next 10 years is hoped to see all of Brunei enjoying the benefits of Fibre-to-the-Home that will also add to diversifying opportunities through the advancement of the Internet.
Among what could be a potential market, he explained, includes mobile application development for day-to-day usage in the areas of education, security and transport management with the Internet being the backbone of its services. At present, the CEO said that TelBru has been in talks with the Ministry of Health for the development of such an application to facilitate the management of the country’s health services.
“Once you build the network, the incremental is easy,” in the development of what is known as a Smart Nation such as Singapore’s national initiative to co-create a future of better living through tech-enabled solutions.
With more and more of the population getting on the fibre bandwagon, Kay explained that “we are now at the point of critical mass and with a few more we will start marketing products,” that are innovation-centric.
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