PETALING JAYA: The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) sees more infrastructure rationalisation activities within the telecommunications industry with the impending roll-out of long-term evolution (LTE) or 4G services in the future.
“In fact, they (industry players) are rationalising and we are happy to see smart partnerships all over,” said MCMC chairman Datuk Mohamed Sharil Tarmizi (pic) at a talk organised by the Malaysian Industrial Development Finance Bhd.
He said by doing that it allowed other new players to come in by latching on existing infrastructure using the mobile virtual network operator concept, rather than having duplication of four or five assets to provide the same kind of service by different operators.
Recently, MCMC named nine companies as recipients of the 2.6 GHz spectrum, to be used for the roll-out of LTE or 4G services.
These are the four 3G players namely DiGi.Com Bhd, Celcom Axiata Bhd, Maxis Bhd and U Mobile Sdn Bhd and four WiMAX players Asiaspace, Packet One Networks Sdn Bhd or P1 (a subsidiary of Green Packet), REDtone International Bhd and YTL Communications Bhd.
The ninth player named was Puncak Semangat.
Sharil said it was all about working smart together and sweating the assets to the maximum, while still competing at the same level.
This is not the first time industry players had joined hands to reduce their operational cost while maintaining stiff competitive rates for consumers.
Last year, in a landmark agreement, Maxis Bhd inked a deal with U Mobile Sdn Bhd to share its 3G radio access network (RAN), making it the country's first landmark network sharing and alliance agreement for an initial period of 10 years.
RAN sharing is aimed at taking the costliest pieces of an operator's network the cell sites and towers, base station equipment, and the transmission network and sharing these infrastructures with competitors, hence generating savings from reduced duplication of network assets.
In 2010, two of the country's mobile network operators, Celcom Axiata and DiGi had announced plans to collaborate on network and infrastructure sharing.
The effort was largely geared towards bringing down operation and infrastructure maintenance costs while sharing and optimising base stations.
Sharil also said that the country's household broadband penetration rate was expected to increase from 62.9% last year to 65% this year.
The household broadband penetration rate has risen steadily from 11% recorded in 2006 to 31.7% in 2009, and is expected to expand to 75% before reaching its saturation point.