The infocommunications sector as a whole displayed positive development despite challenges from the COVID-19 pandemic. According to statistics released by the Ministry of Transport and Infocommunications, consumer landscape for telecommunications services changed in 2020, coincided with the introduction of UNN and the impact of COVID-19, which showed cumulative increase compared to the period from 2016 to August 2021.
In 2020, Mobile Broadband consumers dropped by 16.5%, while Fixed Broadband was 30 point 7% higher. Among the factors that led to these changes include increase in internet usage for online learning and work from home as well as product promotion by telecommunication companies.
The first COVID-19 outbreak in 2020 has led to a drastic increase on the usage of the gov.bn portal. According to statistics, 27,176 users have registered and 16,268 of them have been activated. This showed an encouraging sign to continue upholding digital transformation of government services in stages.
As with other government services, the year 2020 also recorded the highest number of calls for Talian Darussalam 123 with 441,589 calls compared to 336,669 calls in the previous year. This year’s statistics up to August 2021 showed 321,341 calls have been made, and this is likely to continue increasing with the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Postal and Courier Services are also affected by the COVID-19 outbreak, with drastic decrease for small packages starting in 2020 by 65 per cent from the previous year. The lowest total of packages was 5,254 in 2020, while EMS service dropped by 49% from 2016 to 2020.
On Cyber Security, from January to August 2021, there were 77 cyber security-related cases, with 75 cases were related to Cyber Enabled Crime, and 2 others were Cyber Dependent Crime. Apart from that, 302 reports on cyber incidents have been received through calls at 2458001, WhatsApp 7170766 or through online forms via csb.gov.bn. To date, August 2021 coincided with the second wave of COVID-19 and has the highest number of reports which was 59.
Source: Radio Television Brunei