Since its beginnings in 1995, the Internet in Malaysia has become the main platform for free discussion in the country's otherwise tightly controlled media environment.
[2] Malaysia began its Internet services in 1987 with MIMOS (Malaysian Institutes of Microelectronics Systems) as the sole provider.
The conception of RangKoM allowed MIMOS and the universities to create the local talent pool in computer networks which at that time was a very new subject area in Malaysia.
In 1992, the Joint Advanced Research Integrated Network (JARING) was conceived by MIMOS as part of the 6th Malaysia Plan to provide Internet services to the nation.
Datacraft Asia provided the Cisco Systems AGS router for the Internet connection to JARING in February 1993.
[5][better source needed][6] In 2005 the National Public Policy Workshop (NPPW) proposed a strategy to increase the uptake of Information and communications technology (ICT) and the Internet.
[9] In 2019, the government of Malaysia started trials of the 5G network,[10] which is officially rolled out by the end of 2021 on Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya and Cyberjaya.
While there are many ISPs in Malaysia, TM's ownership of the nation's last mile connections restricts competition to densely populated areas in major cities.
has spent about RM1.9 billion, with the inclusion government funds amounting to RM990 million in the installation of high-speed broadband services throughout Malaysia.
[16] The four initial areas that will be covered by high speed broadband services, that is being launched in March 2010 are Shah Alam, Subang Jaya, Taman Tun Dr Ismail and Bangsar.
[17] The benefits announced with the implementation of high speed broadband include smoother e-commerce activities, Internet-based health services, voice over IP (VoIP) communications, web surfing that contains detailed pictures and graphics, as well as faster data downloads.
CelcomDigi (Tenaga Nasional Berhad) (Melaka, Perak, Cyberjaya, Kedah, Penang)[19] Hotspot connections are provided by: On 30 May 2011, the Malaysian government started to ban some websites, mostly file sharing websites;[27][28] this is despite a promise not to censor the Internet made by the sixth prime minister of Malaysia, Najib Razak.
One example is Telekom Malaysia (TM), which faces a cumbersome connection process when linking to a server located in mainland China.
Despite the implementation of Anycast IP, most TM users are redirected to Osaka, Japan, or Hong Kong, China before being connected to the Cloudflare PoP in either of those locations.
[33] Furthermore, there is a persistent issue of internet congestion between Malaysia and Singapore data centers, particularly during the afternoon to midnight period.
To compound matters, TM users have voiced complaints about the degradation of the quality of service, which have been consistently ignored by the company.
Reports submitted by users to the Malaysia Communication and Multimedia Commissioner have also failed to yield any response from the authorities.