YTL Comms is the frontrunner for the RM1.5bil 1Bestarinet to wire up schools

PETALING JAYA: YTL Communications Sdn Bhd (YTL Comms) is the frontrunner for the RM1.5bil 1Bestarinet project that involves wiring up schools in the country, sources said.

YTL Comms may have edged out 18 other players, including a joint bid by Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM) and Time dotCom Bhd (TDC) for the 1Bestarinet tender. The project involves providing Internet access and a virtual learning (VLM) platform for 9,924 schools in the country from January.

Sources said on Tuesday at about 1pm the YTL Comms' name appeared as the winner of the contract on the Education Ministry's website but two hours later the announcement was taken off the website for reasons unknown.

A proof of concept is required before YTL Comms can embark on the first phase by rolling out access to at least 7,000 schools by Jan 1, 2012. Sources said the success rate of the proof of concept would be the determinant to the company bagging the contract or else another party will be chosen.
Getting connected: The 1Bestarinet project involves providing Internet access and a virtual learning platform for 9,924 schools in the country from January.

The contract is for a five-year period, with an option to extend for another five plus five years, totalling 15 years, and this would include installation, maintenance and provision of a VLM.

Some have expressed surprise that YTL was the frontrunner.

Said an industry player: “If indeed they are the winner, it is shocking as they are an unproven service provider. They also do not have fibre so how are they going to offer the services?”

The industry player also pointed out that the tender specifications for 1Bestarinet seemed vague and cautioned that he hoped the project would not suffer the same problems faced by a similar project in the past called Schoolnet.

1Bestarinet came about as a result of the Performance Management and Delivery Unit national key economic area lab series as there is a need to provide Internet access to all schools in the country since the earlier project to wire up schools, Schoolnet, did not meet the objectives set.

For 1Bestarinet, the Internet speed has to be constant and cannot be based on “best effort.'' For urban areas, the access speed is 2Mbps to 10Mbps, and for rural and remote schools 1Mbps to 4Mbps.

All sorts of technologies can be used, be it fibre or wireless technologies including Vsat, wireless, WiFi, but the link to the school should be via fibre. The winner will only be paid based on how much access is provided, the source said.

Schoolnet was introduced in 2004 to wire up schools using wireless or fibre technology but it had major constraints and did not live up to expectations in terms of speed and capacity, and also due to the lack of specifications and integration.

In May, the Education Ministry called for a tender bid for the wiring up of all schools under the 1Bestarinet project.

In the tender's posting it was clearly stipulated that the tender was open to all local companies with preference given to bumiputra tender bids registered with the Finance Ministry under some codes stipulated.

This 1Bestarinet tender bid was opened on May 5, saw 80 companies collecting the tender documents but at its closing on May 31, only 19 companies submitted their bids.

Ironically, YTL Comms, TM and TDC had initially wanted to put in a joint bid but at the last minute the parties could not agree on terms and YTL Comms put in its own bid while TM and TDC submitted a joint bid.

StarBiz reported on Aug 31 that six companies were shortlisted. They were YTL Comms, TM/TDC, Celcom Axiata Bhd, Jaring Communications, Maxis Bhd, and Multimedia Synergy Corp.

Though the Government is looking at RM4.5bil as the absolute sum for the 15-year contract, those in the know claimed the bids received ranged from RM2bil to RM6bil.

At RM4.5bil, it works out to RM1.5bil for every five years or RM300mil for each year.