Hunting for 3G in the Jungle - The Digital Divide

18 year old Veveonah Mosibin had to resort to climbing a tree to get TreeG (someone cheekily made a pun) connection to sit for her online exam. The Kadazandusun lass is a Universiti Malaysia Sabah student in East Malaysia Sabah. Veveonah's village or kampung(kg) in malay is in Kg Sapatalang, Pitas. One of the least developed areas in Sabah but some would attest that it is the most underdeveloped area. 

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Her YouTube channel has since gone viral and her subscribers have grown exponentially overnight. We call her 'The girl who climbed a tree but came down a mountain'.

Meanwhile, down south of Pitas - about 4 hours drive and about 250 km away through the mountainous Crocker Range. A pair of siblings recently too grabbed our attention. Although hunting activities in our jungles are mostly prohibitted, they were caught hunting in a jungle near their home in Kg Bomboi, Keningau. However they were hunting and tracking for a different kind of trophy, the elusive 3G.

.           Rechellyna and Ryverra

Like Veveonah and many more rural school going children, Rechellyna Wivian Rinus and Ryverra Wivianu Rinus' education were also affected by the Movement Control Order (MCO). Schools were shut down and online classes were conducted. 

Online classes is the best solution during the pandemic and this is the digital age. Almost everything is done online - easy peasy. EXCEPT, that darn proverbial wrench is still stuck in the engine which causes the whole solution to be less effective and practical.

15 years old Ryverra and 17 years old Rychellyna are in Secondary School, Form 3 and Form 5 respectively. Rechellyna is due to sit for her O level exam or Sijil Pelajaran Malaysia(SPM). She is about to cross that crossroad in her live that will determine her future paths. So it is understandable that she feels frustrated that her education is put almost in a standstill. 

While most of urban kids in Malaysia are enjoying 4G connection and soon 5G, rural kids in Sabah have to content with 1G, 2G and if they are lucky 3G connection speed. 4G coverage has not covered Sabah fully yet. We are not just talking about Pitas and Keningau. In other areas too. Even in this writer's hometown of Beaufort. 

There are many factors which are interconnected that compounded this problem. I will list the salient ones. 

1) Accesibility to rural areas. Places like Veveonah's are almost unreachable by vehicle. Look at her Channel Veveonah M to see the condition of their road. Making maintenance of telecommunication tower (tower) difficult and even costly. Road networks in rural areas need to be addressed. 

2) Power supply - towers need power to run. In places where power lines have not been supplied, alternatives are diesel generators and solar energy. This will drive up the cost. Not to mention the risk of theft. 

3) Villagers in rural areas are mostly scattered and may not have the consumer volume to make it attractive or viable to telcos to invest in setting up infrastructures. 

Coming back to the Rinus sisters, they are 2 among 6 siblings. Age between 5 and 17. Their 46 years old father is a preschool teacher and 39 years old mother is a housewife whom taps rubber trees to augment their family income. The villagers in Kg Bomboi are mostly farmers and rubber tappers. 

During the MCO, the 2 sisters faced the same problem as Veveonah - poor connectivity. So they scouted and tracked that elusive 3G to a site about 600 metres from their home. With the help of their uncle, they cleared the area and made a makeshift tent where they could do their online classes. Even then there is one slight problem, there is only one smartphone to go around - Their mother's. So they have to take turn to do their classes and homeworks. 

Their makeshift tent which they cheekily call Puru Online. Puru means jungle in Dusun. 

They were later joined by their other siblings. 

Soon other kids from the Kg joined them. 

Recently, social activist Ms Angie Chin-Tan has approached Beyond Pitas to collaborate on helping kids with similar situations in Sabah starting with the kids in Kg Bomboi. Beyond Pitas is a Sabah based NGO which in the past has successfully brought awareness to the plight of the underprivildged in Sabah. 

Angie is crowdfunding via Hanafundme to provide a conduscive learning environment to children who need it and to provide tools to facilitate their studies. To find out more on Angie's effort or donate, please click here. To reach Angie for any inquiry, please email to hello@hanafundme.com.

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