In a rather interesting development within our telco industry, three of the country’s major mobile players, Celcom, Digi, and Maxis have signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to explore the possibility of joint fiber deployment. Before you get too excited, this fiber deployment is not for home implementation though.
According to the joint announcement, the objective of this collaboration is to not only deploy fiber backhaul but also to link fiber to base stations throughout the country in order to help improve the general state of our 4G connectivity. The infrastructure implementation is also aimed at strengthening the foundation for the upcoming rollout of 5G network in Malaysia.
Through the collaboration, Celcom, Digi, and Maxis will also be evaluating their existing fibre infrastructure in order to find ways that their usages can be optimized. The three telcos also pointed out that this collaboration is in line with the on-going National Fiberisation and Connectivity Plan (NFCP).
Back in March 2019, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has actually urged telcos in Malaysia to beef up their 4G network as at that time, only 40% of base stations in the country were fully fibrized. Hence, this collaboration should be able to help the cause although the joint announcement today didn’t include any deployment timeline.
