Kedah wants to be 'info technology-ready' state

Kedah is positioning itself on a fast track to be an "information technology-ready" state.

State Works, Energy, Information, Information Communication Tech-nology (ICT) and Environment committee chairman Datuk Nawawi Ahmad said plans were being made to provide high-speed broadband of up to 100 megabytes per second (MBps).

He said discussions were ongoing with several companies to use wireless optic fibres to provide Voice-over-Internet Protocol (VoIP), Inter-net Protocol Television (IPTV) and video conferencing.

"The services can be packaged according to various speeds from 1 MBps to 100 MBps," he told a press conference to announce the upcoming state-level ICT Carnival.

A wide range of IT and ICT gadgets will be displayed during the carnival at the Sungai Petani Hicom Honda Sports Field from June 1 to 3 and at Stadium Sultan Abdul Hamid in Alor Star from June 8 to 10.

The carnival with the theme 'IT's Ready,' is touted to be the biggest of its kind to be held in the state.

Among the activities to be lined up at the carnival are ICT exhibition, PC Fair, Mentri Besar ICT Inno- vation Award competition, Kedah Cybergame, Mini IT Xplorace, personal computer assembling competition and e-colouring contest for pre-school children.

He said the state was aggressively promoting the "Broadband in Every Household" campaign to increase the broadband usage from 5.1% to 70% of the 490,000 households in the state within the next three years.

Kedah ICT Holdings Sdn Bhd has been given the task of maintaining the broadband infrastructure using open network access facilities.

He said the state was also collaborating efforts with Stacks Integrator Sdn Bhd to create a pool of ICT entrepreneurs in every mukim.

Nawawi said training on system integration, computer assembling and business management would be offered to 150 people.

"This is to enable them to provide after sales services," he added.

Adopted from thestar online, 12th May 2007