Malaysia gave the approval to deploy the second 5G community to U Cellular in November 2024
In sum – what you could know:
– U Cellular has chosen Huawei and ZTE to deploy Malaysia’s second 5G community, focusing on 80% inhabitants protection inside a yr
– The enterprise-grade 5G community will help 5G-Superior and community slicing from day one, enabling tailor-made providers for industries like healthcare, transport and sensible cities.
– U Cellular’s rollout emphasizes improved indoor 5G protection and prioritizes key areas like transport hubs, medical facilities and information facilities—essential for nationwide 5G adoption.
Malaysian service U Cellular has chosen Chinese language distributors Huawei and ZTE as its key expertise companions to construct a brand new 5G community within the nation.
The partnership helps U Cellular’s bold purpose of reaching 80% inhabitants protection inside 12 months, and 90% within the following yr. The corporate’s new 5G community will characteristic superior {hardware} and software program designed to ship robust efficiency each indoors and open air.
Woon Ooi Yuen, U Cellular’s CTO, stated: “We imagine our next-generation 5G community that’s enterprise-grade will enhance Malaysia’s whole 5G and 5G-A expertise, be it for shoppers or enterprises.”
The brand new community will help superior options like community slicing and 5G-A capabilities from the start. These instruments will assist companies tailor their community utilization based mostly on particular wants, corresponding to for healthcare, transportation and sensible cities, U Cellular stated.
U Cellular additionally plans to enhance indoor protection, which stays restricted at present, by growing the variety of indoor 5G websites. Key areas of focus for the rollout embody transport hubs, medical facilities, sports activities venues, sensible cities and information facilities.
“The authorities’s foresight of introducing a 5G twin community mannequin will permit for higher trade participation, encouraging wholesome competitors, spurring innovation, which can result in high quality and repair enhancements,” stated U Cellular chairman Tan Sri Vincent Tan.
The Asian telco famous that Huawei and ZTE had been chosen via a aggressive tender course of launched final yr. Whereas suppliers from numerous areas had been invited, solely the 2 Chinese language corporations submitted proposals, it added.
Huawei Malaysia CEO Simon Solar, stated: “Along with U Cellular, we intention to construct a bespoke 5G-A prepared community… and speed up digital transformation to help Malaysia’s digital economic system.”
U Cellular has beforehand signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with native financial institution CIMB Financial institution Berhad (CIMB) with the intention of extending financing help for its upcoming 5G community rollout.
In November 2024, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Fee (MCMC) gave the approval to deploy the second 5G community to U Cellular, the third-largest operator within the nation.
At the moment, U Cellular stated that it’ll even be working with state-controlled 5G community operator Digital Nasional Berhad (DNB) to make sure the standard of 5G service is maintained.
In Could 2023, Malaysian authorities had stated that the nation would shift to a twin 5G community as soon as DNB achieved 80% protection in populated areas, one thing that occurred in December 2023.
The federal government of Malaysia had additionally revoked a earlier ministerial route of 2021, which had designated DNB as the only real entity chargeable for Malaysia’s 5G deployment.
DNB was arrange by the Malaysian authorities in 2021 as a particular function car to develop the nation’s 5G community infrastructure, which personal telecommunications corporations are at the moment utilizing to supply 5G providers to their clients. DNB’s 5G community was deployed by Ericsson.
As of at present, all operators in Malaysia are providing 5G service in Malaysia through state-run 5G community Digital Nasional Berhad (DNB).
CelcomDigi, Maxis, YTL and U Cellular at the moment maintain stakes in DNB, every with a 16.3% share. These 4 Malaysian operators had beforehand submitted bids to construct the nation’s second 5G community.
