After months of waiting, Digital Nasional Berhad, Malaysia’s 5G single wholesale network, has finalised and published its Reference Access Offer (RAO) on its website. The document outlines the costs, deliverables, requirements as well as the terms and conditions of using the 5G network, and it also serves as a basis for DNB to enter commercial agreements with telcos.
The RAO also reveals the National 5G Wholesale Network Product rates which are charged per gigabits per second (Gbps) on a monthly basis. The base monthly rate for 5G usage capacity is RM30,000 per Gbps for usage up to 1,200 Gbps. For usage above 1,200 Gbps, DNB is charging a (26.7% off) volume discount rate of RM22,000 per Gbps.
In the given example, if an access seeker uses 1,500 Gbps monthly for 5G, they will be charged RM36 million for the first 1,200 Gbps and RM6.6 million for the subsequent 300 Gbps. In total, that calculates to RM 42.6 million per month or RM511.2 million per year for 1,500 Gbps capacity. The document also mentions that the rates do not include the Universal Service Provision (USP) charges and any other applicable taxes.
For the National 5G Wholesale In-Building Network product, DNB will charge a flat rate of RM30,000 per Gbps on a monthly billing cycle. The rate also excludes the USP and other applicable taxes. The rates for the Bespoke 5G coverage network and Private 5G network were not included and it’s stated that it will be mutually agreed upon with the parties on a case-by-case basis. The pricing is based on a Minimum Service Term that’s defined as 10 years.
The RAO also mentions its Key Performance Indicators (KPI) for its 5G network. This includes a data session setup success rate of more than 99%, a mean user downlink throughput of 100Mbps, and a mean user uplink throughput of 3Mbps for NSA and 5Mbps for SA. The KPI also sets a latency of less than 10ms from RAN (Radio Access Network) to the POI (Point of Interface), and less than 15ms from UE (User Equipment) to the POI.
The Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Communications and Multimedia have announced last month that the government has decided to proceed with the 5G rollout using the Single Wholesale Network (SWN) model. Finance Minister Tengku Zafrul had told parliament that DNB will offer 5G access significantly cheaper than what telcos are now paying for 4G.
He said that DNB will charge telcos less than 20 sen per GB for 5G, which he claims is lower than the current cost of telcos to offer 4G on their own network which is estimated to be between 45 to 55 sen per GB. With DNB being the sole entity building the network, Tengku Zafrul said each telco is expected to pay between RM3.5 to 4.5 billion over a period of 10 years, which is lower than the RM1 billion invested by telcos annually on their 4G networks.
All eyes are currently on the big four telcos such as Celcom, Digi, Maxis, and U Mobile, on whether they will take up the wholesale 5G access with DNB. To ease the transition for telcos, DNB has extended its free 5G network access until 30th June 2022.
You can check out the full RAO document on DNB’s website.
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