Malaysia Internet Exchange (MyIX), also known as ‘Persatuan Pengendali Internet Malaysia’ - a non-profit initiative by the Government of Malaysia, calls for an improvement of the current laws governing the Internet, in hope of making the country a more attractive option for international content providers to set up presence in.

There are currently more than 10 international content providers who have a direct presence in Malaysia.

These include MyIX peering partners such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft, Akamai, Amazon, Alibaba, Cloudflare, Limelight, Tencent and Imperva.

Chairman of MyIX Chiew Kok Hin says that a supportive regulatory framework plays a key role in ensuring the Internet ecosystem is conducive and safe, to help attract more foreign Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Content Service Providers (CSPs) establishing a presence in Malaysia.

“When these global players set up their presence in Malaysia, it basically means that their content is brought nearer home, to provide a better experience for Malaysians in accessing these content.

“However, it is not just about having high speed broadband, equally important is the accessibility to quality global content in a manner that is fair and efficient,” he said.

MyIX believes that better regulatory framework is important to attract more global content providers to want to have a directly presence in Malaysia.

“This means that our Internet laws need to be more liberal and clear in the area of censorship, freedom of speech and sharing of content; but at the same time, be firm in setting out the boundaries and penalties in criminal Internet activities and content such child pornography, illegal betting and such.

“As Malaysia’s main peering hub, we hope that the Minister will prioritise the betterment of the existing regulatory framework, so that Malaysia can level up as an viable option for international content providers to operate from for ASEAN and Asia Pacific,” Hin added.

In anticipating more peering members, the association has invested in new high performance; high density, scalable switches at Cyberjaya and AIMS Data Center (Kuala Lumpur) to cater to an estimated growth in the next five years until 2023.

The upgrade will also see higher density ports per slot to reduce operational expenditure and better ready MyIX to provide new services.

“Internet traffic that traversed within the MyIX network – which is reflective of the country’s internet traffic, hit a new highest peak point record of 391Gbps in 2018 as compared to 5 years ago when it hit 94Gbps as its highest peak point in 2014.

“This is easily a 3x fold growth over 5 years; which we can also expect from 2019 till 2023,” revealed Hin.

In addition to the infrastructure upgrade, MyIX has also reduced its port fees by an average of 36 per cent starting Q2 2019 for 1G and 10G ports.

“We want to ensure that our members get affordable peering services, so that these savings can be passed on to their end consumers.

“MyIX will continue to play its role as part of Malaysia’s main peering network to promote efficient routing of traffic via direct peering,” he concluded.

A major event for MyIX in 2019 is hosting the upcoming Peering Asia 3.0 on November 6 and 7 in Kuala Lumpur, that will be jointly organised with MyNOG.

Peering Asia 3.0 aims to encourage and promote peering and interconnection in the region, by interconnecting network service providers, internet exchange providers, data centers and more; similar with Global Peering Forum (GPF) and European Peering Forum (EPF).

The Peering Asia conferences are mainly supported by the Asia Pacific Internet Exchange Association (APIX) - an association of Internet Exchange Points in the Asia Pacific Region.

APIX enjoys a strong membership of 30 members from 18 countries/economies in the Asia Pacific region. In the past, Peering Asia 1.0 and Peering Asia 2.0 were hosted in Japan and Hong Kong respectively.

Currently, MyIX has a total of 98 members in its peering network – comprising 74 local members (Ordinary and Associates) and 24 foreign members.

The latest addition to MyIX’s members' list includes XMT Technologies Sdn Bhd, Majubina Resources Sdn Bhd, Cato Networks, GB Network Solutions Sdn Bhd, Jenexus  Holding Sdn Bhd, KS IT Solutions Sdn Bhd, Smartsel Sdn Bhd and Orient Telecoms Sdn Bhd.

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