page_title: Sabah
section_title: Telecommunication and broadcasting
hierarchical_section_title: Sabah / Infrastructure / Telecommunication and broadcasting
caption_attribution_description: English: Lahad Datu, Sabah: Panoramic view from "Tower of Heaven" (Menara Kayangan) on Mount Silam over Darvel Bay. In the foreground two radio masts.
context_page_description: Sabah is a state of Malaysia located on the northern portion of Borneo. Sabah has land borders with the Malaysian state of Sarawak to the southwest and Indonesia's Kalimantan region to the south. The Federal Territory of Labuan is an island just off the Sabah coast. Sabah shares maritime borders with Vietnam to the west and the Philippines to the north and east. Kota Kinabalu is the state capital city, the economic centre of the state and the seat of the Sabah state government. Other major towns in Sabah include Sandakan and Tawau. As of the 2015 census in Malaysia, the state's population is 3,543,500. Sabah has an equatorial climate with tropical rainforests and abundant animal and plant species. The state has long mountain ranges on the west side which form part of the Crocker Range National Park. Kinabatangan River, second longest river in Malaysia runs through Sabah and Mount Kinabalu is the highest point of Sabah as well as of Malaysia.
  The earliest human settlement in Sabah can be traced back to 20,000–30,000 years ago along the Darvel Bay area at the Madai-Baturong caves. The state has had a trading relationship with China starting from the 14th century AD.
context_section_description: Telecommunication in Sabah and Sarawak were originally administered by Posts and Telecommunication Department until 1967, and maintained by the British Cable & Wireless Communications before all telecommunications management in the state been takeover by Peninsular-based company. The British telecommunication company have establish a submarine cable that linking Kota Kinabalu with Singapore and Hong Kong. Following the expansion of the Peninsular-based company on 1 January 1968, Sabah Posts and Telecommunication Department was merged with the Peninsular telecommunication department to formed Telecommunications Department Malaysia. All operations under Telecommunications Department Malaysia was then transferred to Syarikat Telekom Malaysia Berhad (STM) which become a public listed company in 1991 with the federal government retained a majority shareholding. There are also other telecommunication companies operating in the state although only providing cellular phone facilities. In 2006, the state has the lowest Direct Exchange Line (DEL) penetration rate, with cellular and internet dial-up penetrations rate only 6.5 per 100 inhabitants. Most residents from the low income groups would rather use mobile phones internet or use internet at their offices instead of setting up internet access at home due to the expensive cost and slow services. Until the end of 2014, there were only 934 telecommunication hotspots in Sabah. Due to this, the government are working to increase the penetration and capability of internet connection as well to bridge the gap between Sabah and the Peninsular. From 2016, Unifi fibre optic coverage began to expanded to other towns aside from the main city and major towns, alongside Celcom and Maxis by the following year with a speed up to 100 Mbit/s. In 2019, Digi launches its home fibre broadband in Sabah with speed up to 1 Gbit/s. The mobile telecommunications in Sabah are mostly use 4G and 3G and there is also a free rural Wi-Fi services provided by the federal government known as the Kampung Tanpa Wayar 1Malaysia (KTW) although Malaysia's government-provided public internet speeds are among the slower than many other countries.
  The previous state internet traffic are routed through a hub in Malaysia's capital of Kuala Lumpur, passing through a submarine cable connecting the Peninsular with Kota Kinabalu. The systems are considered as costly and inefficient especially due to the price of leasing bandwidth with the large distance. In 2000, there is a plan to establish Sabah own internet hub but the plan was unreachable due to the high cost and low usage rates in the state. Other alternative plan including using the Brunei internet gateway in a short term before establishing Sabah own gateway. By 2016, the federal government has start to establish the first internet gateway for East Malaysia with the laying of 60 terabyte submarine cable which are developed by a private company named Xiddig Cellular Communications Sdn. Bhd. at a cost of about RM850 million through the Private Funding Initiative (PFI). Under the 2015 Malaysian Budget project of 1Malaysia Cable System Project (SKR1M), a new submarine cable for high speed internet has been built from Kota Kinabalu to Pahang in the Peninsular which completed in 2017. The 1Malaysia submarine cable system linking the state capital with Miri, Bintulu and Kuching in Sarawak together with Mersing in Johor with an increase of bandwidth capacity up to 12 terabyte per second. Another submarine cable, the BIMP-EAGA Submarine and Terrestrial (BEST) Cable Project is currently being built from Kota Kinabalu to Tawau to connecting Sabah with Brunei, Kalimantan and Mindanao which will be completed in 2018. In early 2016, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between the state government and China's largest networking company, Huawei to set Sabah to become information and communications technology (ICT) hub by leveraging on Huawei's ICT expertise. More free high speed Wi-Fi hotspots are being planned in Sabah, especially to the state capital.
  The Malaysian feder
caption: Telecommunication towers atop Mount Silam facing Darvel Bay of Lahad Datu.
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