Telekom Malaysia and Huawei have announced a collaboration to accelerate 5G commercialisation in Malaysia. Both parties have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) during the TM-Huawei Tech Summit which was held recently.
With this partnership, both parties will leverage each other’s core expertise and capabilities to explore a working mechanism covering spectrum, business case, ecosystem and key technologies. This would include a joint study on 5G spectrum and its evolution as well as possible joint development of new services concepts and business cases for selected 5G use cases. The use cases include Fixed Wireless Access (FWA), Smart Cities and Vehicle-to-vehicle or Vehicle-to-Infrastructure (V2X) communications. It would also cover joint studies in the areas of 5G ecosystem innovation and to explore future cooperation on full-fledged 5G end-to-end system.
In addition, a joint working group will also be set up to identify areas of copper line services with the aim of improving customer experience through FWA technology. At the moment, TM offers Unifi Air wireless broadband service via their TD-LTE network as an alternative for Streamyx users that are residing outside of Unifi fibre coverage areas.
Commenting on the collaboration, TM Group CEO, Dato’ Noor Kamarul Annuar said, “It is an exciting development for us to collaborate with a global player like Huawei to accelerate the offering of 5G services to Malaysians. As a national telecommunications infrastructure provider of Malaysia’s Digital Nation aspirations, 5G technology will complement our existing wired-based offerings, world-class connectivity as well as digital infrastructure. It will enable us to deliver more innovative digital solutions to all our customers across various segments. TM via its innovative and comprehensive products and solutions will continue to lay the foundation for Industrial Revolution 4.0 and rolling out 5G nationwide.”
Huawei Malaysia CEO, Michael Yuan said “TM and Huawei have been working hand-in-hand for 15 years. We have been working together to connect more people than ever before. We are now at the crossroads of digital transformation. Huawei will fully support TM’s aspiration to power Digital Malaysia, and will work together with TM to building a better connected and intelligent Malaysia via 5G.”
At the moment, several telcos including TM are conducting 5G demonstration projects across six states from October 2019 to March 2020. The 5G spectrum is expected to be determined as early as Q1 2020 and commercial 5G spectrum availability is targeted for the 2nd half of 2020.
