SWN or DWN? Annuar Musa says a decision on Malaysia’s 5G rollout is now expected next Friday

[ UPDATE 16:00 16/03/2022 ] Malaysia decides to continue to roll out 5G via Digital Nasional Berhad using the SWN model.

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Despite an earlier report that the Malaysian cabinet will decide if 5G will continue to be rolled out via a Single (SWN) or Dual Wholesale Network (DWN) today, Communications and Multimedia Minister Tan Sri Annuar Musa said that a decision is now expected to be made on 11th March. He said both his Ministry and the Ministry of Finance have completed a series of engagements with various parties about the 5G rollout. He added that the cabinet memorandum has been completed and submitted to the secretariat. He also urged all parties not to speculate about it.

At the moment, 5G is currently deployed in Malaysia via Digital Nasional Berhad (DNB), the single wholesale network owned by the Ministry of Finance. DNB has been allocated the spectrum required for 5G, and YTL Communication’s Yes 5G is the first and only telco to offer 5G services at the moment. TM which has agreed to participate in the free 5G user trial has yet to offer 5G services for Unifi Mobile customers. Meanwhile, the big four telcos such as Celcom, Digi, Maxis, and U Mobile have yet to indicate any plans to sign up for a wholesale agreement with DNB, which appears to be a snub to the government’s SWN approach for 5G.

Despite the Ministry of Finance and DNB’s promise of offering a faster and cost-effective rollout of 5G, the industry has raised concerns about the SWN model which has shown very little success in other countries. The big four telcos have publically announced their proposal for a 5G Dual Wholesale Network (DWN) which will allow the telcos to form a private-led consortium to build another 5G network in parallel with DNB.

DAP MP Dr. Ong Kian Ming had questioned the MCMC on the implication of having a DWN and if this means private telcos would only focus on profitable urban areas while leaving DNB to cover rural areas. GSMA, the organisation which represents telcos worldwide, has also called upon the MCMC to provide a Regulatory Impact Assessment of SWN. The organisation said there’s no guarantee that consumers will pay less for 5G via an SWN as DNB lacks some economies of scope that are currently enjoyed by telcos. It also raised concerns of reduced innovation if telcos are reduced to just MVNOs and DNB may not make the most efficient investments as it lacks direct access to end-users.

At the moment, DNB’s 5G network currently covers selected areas in the Klang Valley and it aims to achieve 40% coverage by the end of 2022. Based on our experience with Yes 5G, the network still requires a lot of work before it is truly ready for commercial use. Even in terms of devices, iPhone and Samsung Galaxy devices can’t connect to the 5G network right now but this is mostly due to the arrangement between the telco and device manufacturer. Yes is offering 5G SIMs for free and you can enjoy uncapped 5G speeds with no FUP on the 5G network until 31st March 2022.

DNB has appointed Ericsson out of four bidders as their 5G vendor. Ericsson has recently revealed that DNB will be the world’s first 5G commercial network to use Dynamic Radio Resource Partitioning (DRP) which will enable six different telcos to offer customised 5G services with guaranteed performance on a shared network.

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