Malaysia’s big three telcos – Celcom, Digi and Maxis have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to explore a joint effort to efficiently deploy fibre backhaul and rollout fibre to its mobile base stations in the country. This will help to improve 4G connectivity nationwide in line with the government’s NFCP ambition.

The partnership among the three telcos will enable them to combine expertise in designing, building, commissioning, operating and maintaining their fibre infrastructure nationwide. This will include evaluating ways for telcos to optimise the use of existing fibre infrastructure as well as current swapping and common build arrangements.

Fiberisation of base stations is also crucial for 5G deployment as it is required to deliver low latency, faster data speeds and higher capability to support even more connected devices. As revealed by the MCMC, it is estimated that only 40% of base stations are fiberised in Malaysia. For better deployment efficiency and to reduce cost, a collaboration between telcos would be recommended to avoid duplication of infrastructure.

Celcom CEO Idham Nawawi said: “We believe collaboration is the way forward for the industry towards the development of a sustainable ecosystem. Our MoU will also explore the best practices to deploy network enhancement that are cost-efficient, prevent duplication of infrastructure building, further widening the nation’s connectivity landscape, and ultimately, the rakyat will benefit by receiving products and services with the most value.”

Commenting on the partnership, Digi CEO Albern Murty said: “This MoU is an extension of our existing successful partnership with Celcom on fibre deployment, and we look to forward to work with both parties to ensure we cater for better customer experience across the country.”

Maxis is also looking forward to working together with the two telcos. Its CEO Gokhan Ogut said “This is a positive step forward in delivering ubiquitous network access in all the towns and cities in the country, and an example of intelligent cooperation towards achieving the government’s NFCP ambitions and targets. We look forward to working together to explore what we can all bring to the table in terms of resources and capabilities which can ultimately benefit all consumers and businesses in Malaysia.”

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