MELAKA: Communications Minister Fahmi Fadzil took a boat ride along Sungai Melaka today to test the quality of cellular coverage himself as part of his ministry’s efforts of eliminating dropped calls in the state.

He was onboard the Melaka River Cruise from the Hotel Casa del Rio jetty to Pengkalan Rama in Bandar Hilir for the Cellular Service Quality Test (voice calls) organised by officers of the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) to test the network coverage prepared by telecommunication providers in the country, especially in Melaka, in conjunction with Visit Melaka Year 2024.

Also present for the test were Communications Ministry secretary-general Datuk Mohamad Fauzi Isa, Radio Televisyen Malaysia (RTM) director-general Datuk Suhaimi Sulaiman, Malaysian National News Agency (Bernama) editor-in-chief Nur-Ul Afida Kamaludin, MCMC state coordination division chief Bukhari Yahya and state Science, Technology, Innovation and Digital Communications Committee chairman Datuk Fairul Nizam Roslan, together with representatives of mobile service providers CelcomDigi, Maxis, U Mobile, Unifi Mobile (TM Tech), Yes (YTL Communication) and Telekom Malaysia.

They travelled for 4.5 kilometres along Sungai Melaka to assess the quality of cellular service, with 20 media practitioners in separate boats accompanying them after being briefed about the test by MCMC officers.

Fahmi had earlier said in a brief speech that the test, conducted by trained MCMC officers, utilised two sets of special Nemo Walker Air test equipment to test for continuous and consecutive calls.

He had previously conducted the test together with his deputy, Teo Nie Ching on Jan 9, when they boarded a bus from the Parliament Building to the Communications Ministry in Putrajaya to evaluate the cellular service themselves. - Bernama