TM continues to bring free connectivity to students, communities

• Providing free Wi-Fi access to more than 1K community internet centres, 60 PPRs
• Other efforts include collaboration with Yayasan Hasanah to support Tabung CERDIK

TELEKOM Malaysia Berhad (TM) is providing free Wi-Fi access at close to 60 People’s Housing Projects (PPR) and more than 1,000 community Internet centres nationwide.

TM has been providing free Wi-Fi access at 60 selected PPRs between January and April 30 aimed at assisting SPM and STPM candidates, the company said in a statement. This latest initiative, in collaboration with the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), serves to facilitate home-based teaching and learning (Pengajaran dan Pembelajaran di Rumah – PdPR) of students at the PPRs.

TM is enabling more local communities and students especially in sub-urban and rural areas to access free broadband connection and utilise the facilities safely for their online learning at 563 WiFi Komuniti (WK), 437 community Internet centres (Pusat Internet Komuniti – PIK), and 37 Pusat Internet Desa (PID) in collaboration with the MCMC.

These initiatives follow earlier efforts to help bridge online learning gaps in the country. Earlier, it was announced that TM, through unifi Mobile, is continuing with free daily 1GB (or up to 30GB monthly) LTE data until April 30.

The "Productivity Internet," which has been provided since April 2020, is to be used for e-learning, online productivity news website browsing. Gaming, social media and video streaming are not allowed..

Through unifi Mobile #BEBAS prepaid, TM offers a special data package for Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia (SPM) and Sijil Tinggi Pelajaran Malaysia (STPM) candidates to assist their studies. This package has also been extended to students of higher learning institutions under 22 years of age, following the announcement by the Prime Minister under the “Perlindungan Ekonomi & Rakyat Malaysia” (PERMAI) assistance package on January 18.

The special package offers a 15GB LTE pass at the price of US$4.95 (RM20) only, with a 30-day validity period, and is available April 30.

[RM1 = US$0.247]

“Connectivity is crucial with most students having to learn remotely via PdPR. We hope that with the availability of free connectivity at these 60 PPRs and more than 1,000 community Internet centres, local communities especially students from the B40 families can attend classes and utilise online learning tools so that they won’t fall behind in their studies,” said Imri Mokhtar, Group chief executive officer, TM (pic left).

“They will be able to utilise unlimited data for learning applications and online classroom sessions, especially the candidates of the upcoming SPM and STPM examinations,” he added.

Support government initiatives

Meanwhile, TM is engaged in other efforts to help bridge the education gap stemming from the Covid-19 pandemic. This include a collaboration with Yayasan Hasanah to support the Tabung CERDIK initiative, first announced during the tabling of Budget 2021.

The initiative will see government-linked investment companies (GLICs) and government-linked companies (GLCs) contribute RM150 million to provide laptops to 150,000 students in 500 schools, as a pilot project and is aimed at enabling PdPR.

TM will contribute by providing connectivity and devices and bundled mobile packages. The company will also upgrade broadband connectivity for 325 schools identified by the Ministry of Education (MoE) and the nearby 156 Pusat Internet Centres and 17 PPRs.

Besides that, TM will facilitates PdPR amongst students by hosting the daily broadcasts of DidikTV KPM, the new Malaysian terrestrial channel dedicated to education, on unifi TV from 7am until midnight on unifi TV channel 107.