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https://www.thestar.com.my/business/busines...their-expertise - 2021/03/19 - Big-boys-to-combine-their-expertise
"KUALA LUMPUR: Celcom Axiata Bhd (Celcom) will be jointly developing fibre infrastructure in Malaysia with Digi Telecommunications Sdn Bhd and Maxis Bhd to improve widespread 4G connectivity, increase the country’s fibre infrastructure and prepare tower infrastructure for a 5G future.

This comes after Celcom, Digi and Maxis concluded a definitive agreement to jointly develop and share fibre infrastructure, allowing for faster and more efficient deployment of fibre backhaul to base stations and avoiding duplication of fibre infrastructure in the country.

The collaboration would also allow the industry to extend 4G mobile backhaul to support 5G new sites and fibre to the home expansion. ...

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The fibre collaboration is effective for 20 years.

Other operators may also leverage the opportunity to tap into additional network capacity from the three telcos. ...

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Since 2005, Celcom, Digi and Maxis have been engaged in fibre infrastructure sharing bandwidth capacity to fibre-cable sharing in 2010. Tower sharing has also been ongoing before 2000 among the telcos. ...."
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https://www.lowyat.net/2021/235333/celcom-d...reement-20year/
"Back in February 2020, Celcom, Digi, and Maxis had announced their intention to jointly roll out fibre infrastructure throughout the country. Fast forward to a year later, the three telcos have finally confirmed that they are moving forward with the plan.

According to the joint announcement released yesterday, one of the main elements within the new agreement is that Celcom, Digi, and Maxis will be working together to design, build, operate, and maintain related fibre infrastructure all over Malaysia. For current infrastructure, the new agreement will apparently increase the amount of shared fibre as well as mutual infrastructure swapping arrangements.

Another element that makes this new agreement rather significant is the fact that it involves a duration of 20 years. Additionally, the three telcos also welcome other operators to come in and tap into the additional network capacity that will be generated through this new infrastructure sharing deal."

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Does this mean the Big 3 pioneer celcos will be duplicating the TM HSBB Fibre-0ptic network, so that they won't have to pay TM for Fibre backhaul connections to the Internet for their 4G/5G cell towers.? If so, will such duplication of Fibre infrastructure be wasteful.?

Or it may just mean that the 3 celcos are and will be sharing the Fibre backhaul connection from TM HSBB for their 4G/5G cell towers = save costs.
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Presently, TM HSBB Fibre Wholesale company charges the celcos about RM90 per 30Mbps of bandwidth per month for their 4G cell towers' backhaul connections to the Internet. But Low-band to Mid-band 5G cell towers can reach speeds of >200Mbps = the celcos may have to pay TM HSBB about RM180 per 60Mbps per month for 5G Fibre backhaul connections. Will 5G phone plans be 2X more expensive than today's 4G phone plans.? Eg will today's Digi 150 Infinite become Digi 300 Infinite when on 5G.?
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This post has been edited by lurkingaround: Mar 20 2021, 08:48 PM

Doesn't matter. Why need to have a single monopoly wholesale fibre provider when they can collaborate and build another infra for competition? If the price increase, then those unhappy customer will also switch to other telco. I'm sure they will take this into consideration.

Can't have TM dominating and monopolizing a wholesale network again.

Look at what they did with the HSBB. Cannot allow them to drag everyone along with it anymore.

In future healthy competition can only work if there's more than 1 single wholesale network. Whether it's fibre national backbone or last mile.

Some u guys forgot...
Celcom is actually related to TM...
Comes from the same Gene... Just now they split for accounting, operations & strategy purposes..

Later when both merged..
TM eventually hold both Fiber optic networking (one wholly own, another JV with other telco)...
Muahahahaha.... Double monopoly....

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Malaysia's electricity and water supply are monopolies that charge reasonable prices for their services because they are well-regulated by the Federal or State government.
....... The same has mostly happened for TM HSBB Fibre network, eg since Jan 2019, I pay only RM50 per month for my postpaid GX50 4G phone plan from U Mobile = "unlimited"-data at 5Mbps and unlimited local calls. There is the similar postpaid RM59 4G phone plan from TM Unifi Mobile. U Mobile also has the prepaid GX38 plan for only RM35 per month. You can't get such prices in USA, UK, Singapore, etc.

Before 2018, the TM Streamyx(= Copper ADSL) 1Mbps plan cost RM99 per month. Things have greatly improved since then, eg the replacement TM Unifi Lite 8Mbps plan costs RM89 per month today.

It would be a waste to have another national electricity supply company or other state-wide water supply companies in Malaysia = such infrastructure duplication is a waste of money, eg private electricity supply companies in USA that often profit-gouge the consumers.

The main solution to any problem in such monopolies is good regulation by the government on behalf of the Rakyat.
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You got it wrong there with Malaysian style of monopoly through the control of wholesale at the same time becoming a retailer of the same product.

If TNB resells electricity as a wholesaler and at same time allow many retail energy companies to set up as retails fronts while they themselves join the competition, there is a tendency for the wholesaler to CHEAT and implement unfair practices to favor its own brand.

This was what happened to the HSBB network owned solely by TM. They were commissioned by the government to build and operate the country's open wholesale network for retail ISPs while they run their OWN UniFi retail brand among the competition. The outcome was what happened? Unifi being the brand owned by TM Wholesale themselves played dirty by building just enough ports for a few then reserved all of them initially for themselves so that other ISPs couldn't beat them to the game.

The same could happened too with 5G if the other telco players are not careful. TM will once again dominate the network all for their own Unifi Mobile brand and leave the leftovers for the other players by manipulating port and bandwidth pricing. Only when an alternative network emerges then TRUE competition will prevail.

I give you another scenario. Let's say our country BERNAS holds full control over its supply chain and wholesale price setting. All rice supplies have to go through them first distributed to retail brands to be repacked to be sold in the grocer marts. BERNAS gets to set the wholesale price to the retailers to regulate all their prices. What happens when the wholesale distributor themselves enter the retail market and pack their own brand of rice to be sold to end consumers?

Can they start playing dirty by reserving only the good stock all for their retailer brand and dictate the others by setting a price which will always favor themselves so that no other retailer brands could beat them to the competition?

Not directly related actually. One is a MNC which operates in many countries the other more of a local brand.

The CEO of Celcom Axiata once mentioned before that dealing with TM is a challenge. It's more of company with staffs too used to GLC style attitudes.

That's why Celcom decided to build their own alternative fibre network in Sabah under the brand Celcom Timur to compete with TM HSBB directly. Same goes for TNB Allo for Peninsula Malaysia and SACOFA for Sarawak.

Where it failed was the wholesale provider themselves got into the retail ISP business themselves so they made the other players who bought wholesale bandwidth from them at the losing end while the favor their own ISP branding.

This was why the wholesale idea failed. The wholesale provider had to be NEUTRAL to all retail service providers/ISPs that bought bandwidth from them. Not enter into the game with their own retail ISP and outdo others!

where is the tengku fm 15bil for 5g?

At the end even the government decided doesn't want to give TM to roll out 5G, instead setting up a special company for the purpose of rolling out 5G, even that it isn't a great outcome as the individual telcos wishes to have their own network so they can differentiate between speed, coverage and more.


It is understandable that TM wants the exclusive contact as they wants all the bandwidth and the contract. However, giving out to TM will create disaster for all. Under TM, they will specify favour themselves by giving their company early access to newly built sites and underbuilt for all others, just like what had happened on the HSBB rollout (which ended up with one ridiculous case where 80 households had to share a FDP!) At the end everyone (consumers and Telco providers, except TM which benefits the most under its consumer brand) suffers because of this.

Really, seperate the HSBB network from TM to another company!

This post has been edited by shaun_kok: Mar 22 2021, 09:23 AM

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Internet access is now considered a basic essential service for the Rakyat, similar to electricity and water supply.

Towards this aim, it was the Federal government's intention for TM to monopoly-own the national backbone HSBB Fibre network, so as to provide affordable Fixed/Immobile Internet service to the Rakyat in both urban and rural areas, via TM Unifi as the Retail arm.
....... Later TM HSBB Fibre Wholesale sold Internet access to the celcos for their cell towers' backhaul connections, so as to provide affordable Mobile Broadband Internet service to the Rakyat. To ensure good mobile broadband(= 2G/3G/4G) coverage for the rural folks, the government started the GLC celco company, Celcom, since most profit-oriented private celcos would tend to neglect to cover the rural areas.

Since around 2016, the government has allowed Maxis Fibre and other telcos to piggy-back on TM Unifi's Fibre network as Retailers. Naturally, the private telcos would be at a disadvantage to TM Unifi Fibre but they are not forced to join and compete with TM.

At the end of the day, the most important question is, are the Rakyat getting affordable Internet service and in most areas, especially rural areas.?
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Celcom, Digi & Maxis have their own fiber network.
Celcom sister company e.co doing complete A to Z tower base station business.
There is no news big 3 using TM HSBB Fibre for fibre backhaul to base stations mobile service.

Mostly wrong data.
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https://www.thestar.com.my/business/busines...ng-beyond-fibre - 2019/01/28 - Going-beyond-fibre
"It is said that there are 7.5 million homes in the country. Of this, about 2.5 million is wired up by Telekom Malaysia Bhd ™, over one million of urban apartments by TIME Dotcom Bhd and some smaller numbers by some other players.

In terms of fibre, TNB alone has over 12,000 km across the nation and it has 9.2 million customers. If its fibre and poles are given access to and if it is technically viable, large parts of the nation can have fast broadband. TM has its own poles for connectivity.

Besides that, TM has over 54,000 km of fibre deployed globally, Time dotCom Bhd over 7,000 km running along the North South Expressway.

Others with fibre include Fiberail Sdn Bhd (owned by TM, KTM and Petrofiber Network (M) Sdn Bhd) with 4,800 km running along the railway tracks; Fiberail (owned by TM and TNB) has 110,000 km across Peninsular Malaysia and Sabah. There is also about 1,000 km of fibre on federal roads.

Other players like Sacofa has its own fibre optic network in East Malaysia, and the three major cellular players, Celcom Axiata Bhd, Digi.com Bhd and Maxis Bhd, have similar infrastructure but it is mainly for their cellular networks."

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https://www.malaysiakini.com/letters/305824 - Letter - Internet services monopoly not working out well - Stephen Ng - Published 22 Jul 2015
" The reason, as explained by the Maxis customer care consultant, is because TM Net is the owner of the infrastructure in my housing estate; therefore, Maxis has to depend on the TM Net technicians to respond before their own technicians can do anything to install the services.

According to sources close to the Internet and communications industry, TM Net controls at least 90 percent of the market. Some Internet service providers such as Maxis and Time Dot Com have their infrastructure, but mainly available to multi-storey buildings and certain selected areas.(since 2016, also in selected new Tamans)

Meanwhile, for the rest of the country, the monopoly belongs to TM Net. ..."
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https://www.thestar.com.my/business/busines...rofit-of-rm101b - 2021/02/24 - Telekom-Malaysia-posts-FY20-net-profit-of-RM101b
"TM Wholesale’s revenue fell by 6.1% to RM2.31bil in FY20 from RM2.46bil in FY19, with decrease in all revenue lines. "

https://www.tm.com.my/tmwholesale/Pages/Welcome.aspx - TM Wholesale
" TM Next-Gen Backhaul™ (NGBH™)

Offers a comprehensive mobile backhaul solution over Ethernet to Mobile Network Operators (MNOs)."
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This post has been edited by lurkingaround: Mar 23 2021, 01:26 PM

the three major cellular players, Celcom Axiata Bhd, Digi.com Bhd and Maxis Bhd, have similar infrastructure but it is mainly for their cellular networks."

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backhaul_(telecommunications)
"The most common network type in which backhaul is implemented is a mobile network. A backhaul of a mobile network, also referred to as mobile-backhaul connects a cell site towards the core network. The two main methods of mobile backhaul implementations are fiber-based backhaul and wireless point-to-point backhaul.[2] Other methods, such as copper-based wireline, satellite communications and point-to-multipoint wireless technologies are being phased out as capacity and latency requirements become higher in 4G and 5G networks.

In both the technical and commercial definitions, backhaul generally refers to the side of the network that communicates with the global Internet, paid for at wholesale commercial access rates to or at an Internet exchange point or other core network access location. Sometimes middle mile networks exist between the customer's own LAN and those exchanges. This can be a local WAN connection.

Cell phones communicating with a single cell tower constitute a local subnetwork; the connection between the cell tower and the rest of the world begins with a backhaul link to the core of the internet service provider's network (via a point of presence). A backhaul may include wired, fiber optic and wireless components. Wireless sections may include using microwave bands and mesh and edge network topologies that may use a high-capacity wireless channel to get packets to the microwave or fiber links. "
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How does our Digi 4G phones get on the Internet/www to visit foreign websites or foreign torrent sites or foreign proxy-servers or foreign VPNs.? Does Digi has its own national HSBB Fibre and international submarine Fibre network that connect to the Internet/www.?
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