Information made available to us has revealed that Celcom is very close to launching its LTE network and it likely to happen this week. Supporting this information is the LTE experiential booth that Celcom has setup at its headquarters in KL. Customers wanting to know more about Celcom’s LTE network can visit Menara Celcom to try out the service themselves.
Like Maxis, we expect Celcom to have its LTE service available in a few key market areas and gradually expand coverage and subscriber momentum builds up. Also, we don’t expect Celcom to offer LTE smartphones in its initial launch however there are three phones in the market right now that supports the 2600Mhz LTE standard in Malaysia – ASUS PadFone 2, Nokia Lumia 920 and Lumia 820 – but it remains to be seen if Celcom (and Maxis) have provisioned its network to allow these devices to surf on LTE data.
We’ll be on hand to try our Celcom’s network when it is available, stay tuned for updates on plans and pricing. And finally, no, the iPhone 5 will not work on Malaysia’s LTE network. Hope this clears any confusion.