I think if telco was allowed to build own 5G they would have CA their own LTE bands + 5G to deliver much higher speed and much stable network. And over time refarm their LTE to make 5G more powerful. That was the original technology evolution of 5G  … until some Malaysia ministers come up with SWN idea and cause havoc in Msia mobile industry. Consistently DNB 5G will have data stalling that need to turn of 5G to use mobile data - such troublesome experience.

Hope UM can bring Msia 5G back on track with the right 5G implementation. Sorry to say but i think Maxis and CDB will sink together with DNB.

For example in fibre, every ISP is using TM HSBB, did any of the ISP already crash and burn using TM HSBB?

I'm not sure if there solid proof of Unifi always getting priority or if that is just a perception. More importantly, DNB doesn't have its own retail MNO to prioritize over others. The MNO themselves are the shareholders in DNB which might incentivize DNB to treat all MNO equally. Also thinking back to the 4G era when each MNO had their own network, were the issue solved always fast? Sometimes getting past scripted replies took a long time too. Atleast in my experience.

Again, Is there any actual data or insider info to prove this allegation/configuration? I'm on a 100 Mbps Maxis fibre plan and I often get speeds above that. Meanwhile, I also sometimes heard from my friend that their Unifi getting speeds lower than their subscribed plan. Again, DNB is purely just wholesale without its own MNO which makes this kind of intentional speed disparity between MNO less likely than with TM.
I agree, fibre plan price does look similar. But the RM89 Unifi 100Mbps price you mentioned is promo price and others ISP like Maxis also offer similar promo price. Perhaps the MNO are choosing to price at a similar level to maintain profit margins, but that is just my assumption.





However, competition isn't only about the price of the plan. As I mentioned before, MNO can differentiate through bundling and services. For example, CelcomDigi ONE plan bundles mobile, fibre, devices and streaming plan into one plan which shows competition can move towards services rather than just speed and price.



So I'm not entirely sure the pattern we see with TM HSBB will repeat exactly with DNB. DNB structure is different from TM HSBB and honestly looking back at the "competitive" 4G era, we saw consolidation, which doesn't exactly a perfectly healthy, competitive market for consumer.

Meanwhile despite concerns, MNO using DNB seems to be financially stable. The consumers also benefit from cheaper 5G plans compared to the old 4G plans. The MNOs are clearly still making profit using the DNB network without the massive CapEx they had during 4G.

That's an interesting experience. Thanks for sharing your own experience with Maxis on TM HSBB.

Can I have some screenshots or links to post where people discuss this ONU configuration and speed capping would be helpful for reference purposes. Hard to understand the details for me about deprioritizing LAN ports issue without something to reference to. If you can share, I appreciate it very much.
  You bought up good point there but then, won't the MNO themselves are eventually becoming the shareholders of DNB? So if DNB gets complacent later, isn't that essentially saying the MNO themselves aren't pushing for innovation or improvement on DNB?

And this ties back to your point about 3G/4G failures being MCMC fault due to regulation. My question is, if the 4G era was a competitive market between MNO building their own networks, why did MNO still need MCMC pushing them so hard on basic coverage and quality standards? Shouldn't "competition" naturally drive innovation beyond just the bare minimum regulated standard?

If MNO in a competitive market still need MCMC to force them to improve coverage, and with DNB having a wholesale network can potentially become complacent according to you, doesn't that indicate the issue is not with the network wholesale structure but perhaps MNO lack of innovation beyond coverage from the MNO themselves? Why is it always everyone fault but the MNO get the free pass to be complacent?



In my opinion, DNB wholesale network at least forces the MNO to compete on plans price and services because coverage should be a basic requirement that all MNO and consumer deserve to get. With DNB, consumers get the benefits of competition through cheaper plans price without sacrificing coverage, something that "competitive" 4G era didn't manage deliver effectively based on the pricing and coverage issues I saw.



https://www.ookla.com/articles/malaysia-5g-q4-2024

You said 5G individual is better than consortium, yet the data show otherwise.

Why is it that 10 years after 4G was released, Malaysia 4G is still barely surpassing other ASEAN countries?



I’ve never seen any Malaysia 4G MNO make world news or achieve anything significant other than finding ways to rip off customers with internet that barely outperformed Thailand.



Also during the 4G era, there was congestion during peak times too, yet I didn’t see people complaining about MNO 4G "competitive" rollout. Now with 4G network traffic being offloaded to 5G, suddenly everyone puts on rose tinted glasses when talking about the 4G rollout when in reality, the MNO release expensive plan prices with hidden FUP, low data caps, speed caps and many more issue .

Yet with DNB, with just 100MHz spectrum, consumers already get the benefit instantly. You can pay as low as RM25 for unlimited 5G. With DNB, people can now subscribe to affordable home broadband without paying fibre prices like in the 4G era. Has everyone forgotten this?

I don’t remember this much scrutiny when big telcos like Maxis and Celcom charged ridiculous prices during 4G early days. Yet with DNB, from Day One, people got affordable 5G services instantly the moment it went public.

The reason probably because Altel was awarded a huge chunk of 4G spectrums while the other 4 were given small amount of spectrums to launch their 4G. Then Telco has to pay rent to Altel and Redtone to rent their spectrum. Altel and Redtone just happily pocket the rental without doing anything … Therefore the explaination on the capacity and price/GB … because telco need to recuperate the investment they paid Altel and Redtone. Malaysia has 6-7 telcos while other countries 2-4 operators, so for same investment on the network, msia telcos unable to recover earning fast enough and not able to bring ARPU lower than other countries …

In summary, gov intereference and cryonism cause Msians the problem back in 4G.

Now in 5G, gov again attempt to interfere with telco businesses, and causing the DNB problem. We are now enroute to see poor 5G quality happening … the early fame for Msia 5G ending … DNB runs out of money and they in huge debt, yea Msians enjoy cheap 5G which they decide to turn off so they can use 4G instead cause quality turns bad, the only thing Msians get is 5G logo not the great service anymore … premature ejaculated on all the paid marketing and news reporting DNB pumping into all the adverising agencies and newsgroup to promote themselves - fastest speed globally, most consistent 5G paid advertisement … now water runs dry, you dont see those fancy ranking talking great Msia 5G anymore … no money no glory …

That is not a problem but an advantage which gave equal footing and rights to all participating telcos which had shared equal ownership in it.

TM HSBB was a fine example of a monopoly failure.

It was awarded the right to build a so called OPEN access fibre network that gave equal access to all participating telco yet it also ran a retail service provider (RSP)/consumer ISP against all other telcos that used  the open network?

The result?

Unfair access to other telcos who were renting from them, everyone had to use their wholesale equipment and couldn't use spare dark fibres for their own system deployment, every other telco could only access Layer 3 onwards. They could not connect spare fibres as equal share holder to the network with their own head end equipments.

All participating ISPs are subjected to TM's wholesale monopoly pricing which was known to favor their own ISP while other players were given the short end of the stick.

Why do you think Time until now refused to sell their service on TM's HSBB wholesale network?

DNB resolved that very issue. By giving all participating telcos EQUAL shareholding, no other player has advantage or monopoly against the rest of the members. DNB as the infra owner does not run their own telco which competes with the rest of the telco players.

Now that Umobile is repeating the very same failure which TM did, and burdened with the entire investment themselves I do have doubts about it.

Note the highlighted statement.

"Other telco can build their own infra if they want to prevent monopoly"

The BIG question now is why then DNB2 just awarded solely to UMobile alone?

Instead a better idea would be why not allow any telco willing to expand their own footprint beyond DNB1 if they wish to with their own equipment to cover exclusive in-building and blindspots coverage according to their customers market while DNB continues to serve the existing 82% with equal ownership rights.

Why allow just one telco the rights to do rent seeking from others just as where the TM HSBB idea failed miserably?

Typical gov project, after finish suck dry/ claimed all the glory/ press conference/ sponsored marketing, will find waterfish to bailout their collapsed business .. Maxis, CDB and YES the waterfish. TM smells the scam decide not to participate and UM gets free exit pass … every time gov attempts to involve in business = will end with bailout.

https://forum.lowyat.net/topic/5544616

Based on this topic...

Under article 5.2 Equipment & Platform Security...

Huawei, ZTE or others Chinese equipment vendors & supplier of 4G, 5G or even 6G  might get axed or being reviewed.....

So deployment of 5G by U Mobile could be affected???

Existing Telco equipment vendors & supplier need to be changed too??

This agreement is one sided one....  So scared with those Chinese vendors.... They said about backdoor holes & security reasons....

Those Western one don't have backdoor holes security issues????  Sure got one... CIA or so is monitoring....

MoF realised ready that DNB can't make money from making wholesale network unlike TM HSBB where TM still leading ahead.
So will Maxis Celcomdigi control DNB after this??

So do I.

DNB 5G is next to useless in my area. 

4G in my area not that fast, but solid rock stable & reliable. Hardly any downtime.