KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 28 — The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) will respond by sending its officers to areas facing broadband connectivity problems within 24 hours upon receiving the complaints.

MCMC chairman Dr Fadhlullah Suhaimi Abdul Malek said by doing so, MCMC could check and really look into the problems in the areas and also contact the complainants for further input.

He said the complaints mostly came via MCMC’s website and complaint channels, apart from the team’s daily monitoring of user complaints on social media and media reports.

"When we receive a complaint, it will also be brought to the attention of the service provider and, within three days after that, the service provider must report back to MCMC.

"If they fail to provide a report during that period, then they will be deemed to have violated the Mandatory Standards on Quality of Service and MCMC can sue the service provider,” he told Bernama after appearing as a guest on Bernama TV’s The Nation programme today.

Apart from preparing the report on the problem and its possible solution, Fadhlullah Suhaimi said the service provider was also encouraged to contact the complainants regarding the matter.

However, he said the duration for the problems to be solved may differ according to the situation.

On another development, Fadhlullah Suhaimi is of the opinion that the home-based teaching and learning (PdPR) approach needs to be strengthened by modifying the learning medium as well as taking into account the broadband usage factors.

He explained that long-term video streaming will increase bandwidth usage compared to audio streaming, thus this will burden the user in paying their bills.

As such, he recommended the use of other suitable technologies, such as TV broadcasting for the implementation of PdPR as the penetration of this technology has reached 100 per cent in Malaysia.

This includes 5.7 million Astro subscribers, two million UniFi subscribers and 2.3 million users of myFreeview decoders, making the percentage of TV broadcasting penetration exceed the number of homes in the country, he said. — Bernama