Malaysia’s rural broadband service provider MEASAT says it is now connecting close to 600 school sites in remote locations throughout the country through its CONNECTme NOW high-speed wireless satellite broadband services.
This achievement, it adds, is in line with its commitment to provide greater access to connectivity for education, especially in underserved rural communities.
CONNECTme NOW is a high-speed Wi-Fi hotspot service appropriate for public use in underserved or unserved areas across Malaysia.
It enables users to access the internet with minimal barriers via competitively priced prepaid access codes in small packages that meet end user needs, offering a service with no long-term contracts and more affordable access without high upfront fees.
It’s also described as ideal for locations with little or no terrestrial connectivity. For the school sites it provides equitable access and lower costs per school.
The CONNECTme NOW service can dynamically allocate bandwidth on demand. Thus, as the quota allocation is provided on a per user basis, schools with populations of any size – small or large – can easily scale up using this architecture, addressing potential bandwidth congestion.
MEASAT says the internet connectivity services will benefit teachers and students by offering download speeds of up to 100Mbps per location. Beyond the allocated quota for a given school, additional bandwidth can be purchased on a per user basis to meet personal consumption demands.
The service is supported by MEASAT’s 24x7 Network Management Centre as well as an established local distributor network.