SHAH ALAM, July 31 — The Selangor government is confident of developing its broadband connectivity to link all its administrative centres in the next three years, state executive councillor Izham Hashim said today.

In charge of the state infrastructure and public facilities, agricultural modernisation and agro-based industry committee, the Pandan Indah lawmaker told the Selangor Assembly today that the state-backed SmartSel Sdn Bhd will help telecommunications companies expand further into the rural areas within its borders.

"This is one of the reasons we established SmartSel because we are aware that telecommunications companies will prioritise their profit margin and develop accordingly.

"Even though there are efforts to develop connectivity and broadband transmission towers by the telco companies, especially Telekom Malaysia, it isn’t that economical for them because the returns are slow.

"So SmartSel will bear the burden of this cost. In the Smart Selangor initiative we also have projects to build transmitters to strengthen connectivity in rural areas,” Izham replied to a supplementary question by Bukit Gasing assemblyman Rajiv Rishyakaran during Question Time.

Currently, the Selangor government is focusing on developing connectivity in Kuala Selangor. Its state capital of Shah Alam is fully connected, he said.

Izham said broadband connection will be expanded to cover the entire state after the administrative centres are linked up.