Communications and Digital Minister Fahmi Fadzil has revealed that Malaysia’s 5G population coverage is now at 68.8% as of the end of August 2023. This is a slight increase from 66.8% 5G population coverage from the end of July.
The minister reiterated again that all telcos in Malaysia will sign a share subscription agreement (SSA) on equity stakes in Digital Nasional Berhad (DNB) in the near future and the implementation of 5G could be accelerated with the involvement of all telcos in the SSA.
The government announced the transition from a single wholesale network to a dual network approach earlier this year and DNB has been mandated to accelerate its 80% 5G population coverage by the end of this year. At the moment, all major telcos in Malaysia now offer 5G services to their consumers after Maxis finally signed their 5G access agreement with DNB last month.
Late last month, Fahmi reported said DNB will be making major announcements before Merdeka Day which included the appointment of a new Chief Executive Officer and telcos signing their SSA with the single wholesale network.
In October 2022, four telcos – Celcom, Digi, TM and YTL Communications executed their SSA to take up equity stakes in DNB. After the government announced a policy shift towards dual network, CelcomDigi and TM announced their termination of the SSA citing that the long stop date to fulfil all the conditions precedent under the SSA has lapsed.
With all five telcos going all-in with DNB with a 10-year access agreement and equity deal, the big question remains… who will build the second 5G network?
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