In response to our post on the new Mandatory Standard on Access Pricing (MSAP) which took effect on 1st March, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) said the reduction of broadband services can be expected after September 2023. The regulator said the MSAP can only happen once the access agreements have been concluded between the service providers.
To recap, the MSAP sets the wholesale pricing for various telecommunication services which include broadband access. It was mentioned by Communications and Digital Minister Fahmi Fadzil in March, that the price of internet is expected to be reduced in 2-3 months’ time.
Mandatory Standards on Access Pricing (MSAP) yg diumum 16 Feb lalu bakal mengurangkan harga internet secara keseluruhan dalam masa 2-3 bulan ini inshaAllah.
— Fahmi Fadzil 🇲🇾 (@fahmi_fadzil) March 30, 2023
Kerana SKMM arah harga borong broadband dikurangkan.
The MCMC stated that most access providers have or are in the process of publishing reference access offers (RAO) and the negotiations of access agreements will commence based on published RAO. These negotiations are expected to be concluded by the end of September 2023. This also means that the price reduction for broadband services can only be expected to take place thereafter.
The regulator iterated that the government launched the Pakej Perpaduan Fixed Internet Broadband plan in February to help B40 groups, veterans, the disabled and the elderly. It shared that a total of 6,066 users have taken up the offer which provides up to 30Mbps fibre broadband for RM69/month.
As we highlighted yesterday, several telcos including CelcomDigi, Maxis, U Mobile, Time, Allo and YTL Communications have already published their RAO to comply with the new MSAP 2023. However, TM, the biggest fibre broadband provider has yet to publish its RAO. According to TM, discussions are still ongoing and the RAO will be updated in due course.
With the new MSAP, the wholesale prices for broadband would be reduced by half as the 100Mbps rate for Layer 3 HSBB is reduced from the current RM515 to RM254.64 for 2023. The MSAP also included a schedule for reduced rates until 2025. At the moment, the wholesale rates remain unchanged since 2020 as the previous MSAP enforced during Gobind Singh’s tenure as Communications and Multimedia minister was from 2018 to 2020.
Once the new MSAP is implemented, the majority of Malaysians will be able to enjoy cheaper broadband or upgraded to faster speeds, not just 6,000 over users who fall under a defined category. As of Q1 2023, TM has over 3 million Unifi fibre subscriptions and Maxis has 601,000 fibre connections. Meanwhile, CelcomDigi has 107,000 fibre broadband customers.
To recap, the previous MSAP was issued on 20th December 2017 and it was implemented in June 2018 after Gobind took office in May 2018. The following month, TM announced its new basic 30Mbps plan for RM79/month and offered a turbo upgrade with up to 10X speeds. This is followed by Celcom and Maxis reducing their respective broadband pricing, and Time also reduced its 100Mbps plan to RM99/month while introducing its 1Gbps plan for RM199/month. At the time, it was reported that TM appealed to the government to delay and revise the MSAP as it would hurt its earnings.
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