PENANG, Oct 23 (Bernama) -- Remote and rural areas in Penang and Kulim soon will enjoy broadband facilities to enhance connectivity and reduce the digital divide among the people, Chief Minister Tan Sri Dr Koh Tsu Koon said Tuesday.

He said the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) would be conducting a broadband pilot project and providing more than 100 free hotspots to the under-served areas and communities with the cooperation of two telecommunication companies.

Speaking to reporters after delivering his keynote address at the two-day Conference on MSC Malaysia Cybercity @ Penang here, he said the project would be the first in the country and hoped that Penang would be enjoying over 90 per cent coverage with the broadband facilities.

"This is a government and private telcos effort and the details of this broadband pilot project will be announced by the MCMC in a month or two," he said.

He said Penang might be small in size but it had high density and with the the cybercity and cybercentres in Penang and Kulim, the people would need higher connectivity in the future.

Dr Koh said, the installaqtion of the broadband systems was expected to start by end of this year and hopefully by 2010 Penang would be having more free hotspots.

"All this while, we have the fibre optic and wireless facilities in place but the challenge now is how we are going to connect all these and ensure that all areas in the state are covered. I'm sure there would be more facilities installed by the private telcos in the future,"he added.

Later, Dr Koh witnessed the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the Software Consortium of Penang (SCoPe) and Multimedia University (MMU) to expedite mutual interests and benefits which will arise from the industry-university collaboration in technology advancement, software development excellence, research and development and employee-education.