“It will help reduce the infrastructure cost,” Maxis CEO Sandip Das said.

“You should really conserve [total telecom] investment so that most of it goes to development of new resources for the country.”

He suggested investment be funnelled instead into broadening broadband and 3G networks into geographical areas not served currently.

“Why should two companies or three companies duplicate and triplicate that expense?” he said.

Celcom Axiata Bhd and DiGi Telecommunications Sdn Bhd announced on Friday their plans to team up for network and infrastructure collaboration locally.

The three key collaborative areas will include operations and maintenance, transmission and site sharing, and radio access network.

The collaboration is aimed at generating operational and cost efficiencies for both operators.

“Network sharing is not new. It is something that has been happening over and over,” Sandip said at a press conference after Maxis’s first annual general meeting.

Sandip also said that the Celcom-DiGi team-up was more helpful for new territories because it was hard to share existing infrastructure.

He added that Maxis had an “open mind” about sharing networks with interested parties, including new players.

However, he was coy as to whom these parties might be.

“It’s a process. We will not be making announcements,” he said.

“But the process is always on and I’m completely open to discussions with anybody.

“We are happy to offer our own fibre to people.”