This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on December 19, 2018

KUALA LUMPUR: Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM) said yesterday the company has, to date, upgraded almost 60% of over 340,000 Streamyx customers’ high-speed Internet packages in unifi-coverage areas to unifi at the same prices of their current plans, to widen the nation’s broadband coverage.

In a statement, TM said thus far, almost 70% of upgradable packages owned by Streamyx customers in non-unifi coverage areas have been moved up to double their current Streamyx speed, where technology permits, at the same prices of their current broadband plans.

“As we had highlighted earlier, due to copper technology limitations, the copper network is only able to deliver speeds up to 8Mbps. However, to effectively address the remaining Streamyx customers to whom we are unable to provide upgrades, we look forward to a collaborative win-win approach with the government as well as other industry players. We will continue to play an active part in the dialogue, debate and conversations ongoing in the industry towards addressing these outstanding issues to move forward,” TM said.

“Streamyx customers eligible for the speed upgrade will continue to be contacted via email and phone. We urge customers to update their latest contact details — telephone number and email, to facilitate this process. This can be done via the unifi portal or care app.”

TM said its statement yesterday aims to clarify Deputy Communications and Multimedia Minister Eddin Syazlee Shith’s statement that “the government is aiming to upgrade all Streamyx user services to unifi through TM by March next year”.  “We wish to highlight these upgrading exercises are being implemented in different stages and expected to be completed by the first quarter of 2019,” TM said.