1. Fair word: If compare 4G price in MY in 2013 to 2024, 4G price has dropped significantly due to competition in the market. Quota given till now has reached the level people dont bother to know how much they have used. So it is untrue that price for 4G is high. Malaysia price per quota is among the lowest globally despite of our small market size. My plan in 2013 is RM89 for 1GB today i paid RM79 for 80GB, it is a significant drop in price. This is result of market demand and competition.

Based on Ookla, Malaysia average 4G speed is 30Mbps, 6Mbps is those plan that use up their quota or some very basic prepaid plan, all plans are given at unlimited speed subject to coverage and congestion (same as any other telco around the world). In US, cheap mvno plan can come very cheap as they are limited to certain city and state usage only. So your comparison is somehow biased skewed aside.

2. All new tech tend to share one thing, lack of users therefore score tends to be high, in the beginning when Celcom (i have multiple lines) launched 5G with DNB, i can see 600Mbps on 5G, today only 100Mbps. That is 6x degradation. Tech scoring degrades over time not improve, so comparing a new 5G vs decade old 4G on user experience with uneven number of users and consumption also biased.

3. I have done some reading previously seeing the DNB fiasco, government allocate DNB 200Mhz for 5G shared by 6 operator equivalent to about 30Mhz per operator. From online, 200Mhz can give about 2.5Gbps for 5G, means 30Mhz is around 375Mbps. When 5G becomes congest every telco only has 375Mbps to share among all their users which is not enough - when more users going into 5G, 4G experience eventually will be faster than 5G which is laughable. Telco themselves have 4G spectrum, if the 5G spectrum given to them combining their 4G spectrum they can offer higher speed - which done by most telco around the world. Gov initiative on 5G is actually a tech mistake that is why no other country doing single wholesale - there are two eventually gave up and another bankrupt.

4. Back then, gov invest in fibre infra rollout with TM because no other telco willing to lay fibres due to high cost. However, for 5G back in 2019, all telcos are lobbying to do it and want to roll out and showcases done getting ready. Then PN dropped a bombshell and give to a newly form company DNB, and government needs to fork out billions for DNB. While private sectors willing to use their money, government back then is wasting taxpayers money that can be used for better purpose. And now gov claims they will maintain 30% shares in DNB.

5. NPS score comparing 5G and 4G are biased as 5G users are less than 4G, comparing a unloaded tech with a loaded tech, of course the new and unloaded one will win. I am early adopter for 5G, i can say quality is getting poorer and some area with 5G cant even surf web, have to disable 5G to use 4G, this is today experience of 5G. And i cant change to other operator cause knowing quality will be equally shit. When i call Maxis and Celcom to complain, i cant threaten them to port out cause others better quality, it sounds stupid.

Summary: Monopoly sucks.

#1 UMobile replaces Digi in the price war in 4G arena which create competition to bring price down, even Maxis also has to follow as they losing customers back then.

#2 If not mistaken, it took telco 3 years to 70% during 4G era. However telco 70% includes inbuilding, DNB only outdoor. Can google for data. Also DNB is MCMC brainchild, whatever announce by DNB need not fact check by MCMC, if DNB announce 90% tomorrow, who can say they are wrong? And MCMC enjoys the marketing they did a good job. So the pop coverage is merely smokescreen for marketing purpose.

#3 I think DNB 5G solution prevented telco to make use of their own LTE bands (combine with the 5G NSA) to deliver higher speed and to reduce congestion. DNB 5G is not scalable as they have limited LTE spectrum to complement the 5G spectrum. Most operators globally doing these except Msia cause of the single wholesale network model. So DNB 5G will hit dead end in near future.

#5 Maybe you stay rural, 5G speed is not like when it first launch always 400Mbps, now i hardly see 100Mbps at my area. Sometimes data stalled and i have to manually turn off 5G. 5G is fast in early stage cause not many people using it, now more people, it becoming crappy day by day. So all the marketing about 5G good speed vs 4G is merely cause no one was using it in the beginning - so and if DNB cant scale by adding more spectrum, it will be another 4G or even worse.

That is why with all the sugarcoated Single Wholesale Network idea while no one in the world doing it, already know is bad idea. But government back then maybe something happened behind, they took the risk and now is in big mess. DNB 5G can be delivered fast but not sustainable… in the end Msians have to pay more.

1. New tech can offer more cost efficient per GB, so 5G is better than 4G is no doubt. 2G > 3G > 4G > 5G cost per GB reduction is within expectation. Having say that YES 5G giving 1TB is merely a marketing stunt as unless you tether and torrent, not possible to consume up that much for today usage. To calculate shall based on price per actual consumption, which may differ for everyone. In short 5G can bring down the data cost for consumer, whether is DNB or telco own built it will still gonna happen with telco own competition among each others. Existence of DNB is redundant, bad part about DNB is government needs to fork out money which means using people money to do it when telco willing to pay for it.

2. LTE population coverage of Malaysia blended
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1051191...ation-coverage/

DNB is under purview of MCMC, a gov entity itself, and gov also own 30% or DNB (previously 100%), DNB is formed by Finance Ministry and Communication Ministry and did not use third party audit on the population coverage measurement. There is a conflict of interest. For telco coverage on 2/3/4G, MCMC audit them so give a more fair assessment.

You are right i have no proof but it is questionable as i am typing this dense urban area place, there is no 5G.

3. I did my own reading and some chatgpt, no matter how i calculate 200Mhz with the LTE 40Mhz low band, DNB will max out to serve 6 operators. In 5G NSA model, the 700Mhz is DNB major achiles heel, that will congest first and cause issue of using 5G before the actual 200Mhz 5G band. While SA may be the solution but it seems quite abit of negative reviews from country currently running, you may not like this but i will say my source is google.

4. You seem to dwelve into the marketing campaign that say Malaysia 5G is fastest, kinda naive, do note that when DNB first launch, only YES the smallest telco in Msia is offering service with a few thousand customers maybe or less. The entire network is used by few people, when they do speed test, it will be really fast as compared to other countries which already launch 5G for years with more significant number of users. The less the adoption of 5G, the faster the speed will be. So the comparison with others merely show we have less users not really fastest. You need to observe much longer trend … i think 2025 perhaps will be a fairer bit comparison i.e. 2025 Msia speed vs 2023 of other countries speed.

5. I think is wrong for you to keep comparing current 4G speed which has more subs but older tech compare to 5G with 5G today in Malaysia with less customers and less devices (cheap 5G phones like <RM1000 quite little still). This is also same for my point in #4, where other countries launch 5G longer and have more 5G subs in their network and therefore their average speed came down due to higher adoption. This is true as Msia 5G speed is slowing down after 2 years of launch and it will go lower and match with rest of the world once adoption pick up.

As expected, DNB 5G speed has began to slow down as more people using. Those Ookla and OpenSignal numbers of a brand new network is not sustainable from Day 1. Meant for marketing to con public.

https://www.thestar.com.my/tech/tech-news/2...e-gotten-slower

TS saying how great is DNB 5G vs 4G merely to compare a new network with low user in beginning and usage vs a decade old LTE network with majority users and heavy usage. And also compare how great is new unloaded Malaysia 5G vs other countries that launched for many years. It is unfair and biased comparison to start with when other countries 5G penetration is significantly higher as it was launched much earlier.

TS claimed Telco took longer to accomplish the coverage DNB needs merely 3 years to accomplish but forgot to mention Telco also need to cover inbuilding but DNB until today has limited indoor 5G coverage. Also TS didnt stipulate about the spectrum used by DNB which is L700 (that will show 5G icon despite not 5G) with telco LTE bands that requires more sites for similar coverage- also non equal comparison. DNB likely faking the 5G coverage % by using L700 that has better penetration.

MCMC is the one setting regulation to monitor coverage and ensuring coverage everywhere, if MCMC makes it mandatory for good coverage KPI within 3 years, they should regulate and enforce it. Not to mention MCMC been getting contribution from telcos from revenue to cover rural area but yet still not optimum coverage, where the money goes?

DNB and Ericsson both have been contributing alot of marketing costs to suspiciously promote Msia 5G in advertisement board everywhere, events and research firms as well as award winning ceremony for ministers to promote Msia Single Wholesale Network model.

Having a second network will be able to challenge DNB self proclaimed success and provide an equivalent comparison with DNB. Competition drives the industry not paid advertisement, tweaked stats and biased comparison.

Furthermore it is not public money to have second network, DNB using Rakyat money and government owning DNB unnecessarily. Gov shall not involve into business …

This post has been edited by p4n6: Oct 31 2024, 07:59 AM

Possible:
UM + CDB
UM + TM
Since all using ZTE.

If the award happening in 2024, UM winning chance boost significantly. If it was last year or year before they could be underdogs but 2024 onwards is their year.

UM is aiming RM 20B IPO, perhaps now even higher and more. Certain major shareholders will be earning billions in this program.

That is the reason there why 5G shall be deployed by a 4G telco not a nobody new company. Mobile tech is a transitional tech means needs past tech to help new tech + work together. If telco build 5G they would leverage on their 4G spectrum to complement 5G for inbuilding and capacity expansion.

Gov is naive to think 5G can handle by new company typical mindset for people that dont understand + too ego to listen to the industry when making decision.

Now DNB stuck with only 5G and no more expansion option. While telco pushing their customers to 5G, DNB will not able to guarantee their speed.

Confirm need to be bailed out …

Do share the 3rd year Msia 4G speed comparison with rest of the world as per openSignal. Dont forget to compare unbiasedly on the amount of spectrum each telco had.

Back then, MCMC only give every telco 10Mhz instead of standard 20Mhz for 4G deployment, instead gave newbie Altel majority of spectrum and also Redtone 10Mhz (Both Redtone and Altel never have 4G services till today). Probably that why it was sucks initially…
Telco been forced to rent spectrum from Altel and Redtone … if telco not being forced to rent, they will have money to able to build more sites to reach higher coverage … so is MCMC fault in a way.

DNB “fortunate” to receive 120Mhz for itself and with gov pumping money in to support and help extort telco to subscribe and buy its stake. If DNB like telco back then get partial 30Mhz instead, you will see how fast is the speed compare to others globally …

DNB reaching the self declared 80% coverage which contributed highly by 700Mhz, if they are building using 2600Mhz (like 4G), they wont be able to hit that number at current pace …

DNB inbuilding after 3 years not even into a single mall is i think cause they ran out of money. Telco focus on where user is so they will go into building and malls instead of rural … this is true. DNB saves all those money and build more outdoor to reach higher outdoor coverage … so that is the trade off … building inbuilding does not give DNB the shout of reaching 80% despite benefiting more people … so they target outdoor instead cause chasing for the 80% shout … they know Fahmi likes the fame

And due to poor inbuilding, the consumption of 5G become low, adoption slow, so 5G speed is higher cause lower user than supposed to be using it…

So i said comparison you made is skewed and biased as a lot of facts deliberately undeclared merely to hard sell DNB. There is impossible to have a proper comparison between 4G and 5G deployment in Msia …

And why I said DNB wasted money on advertising and marketing, cause they have no customers besides of the 6 telcos which MCMC extort and force to buy their stakes … so their ad is to justified their existence …

In short, gov setup an empty shell company, in which the empty shell company borrowred billion ringgit of loan from bank using gov as guarantor.

Spent 5B, gov paid 450M, telcos paid 300M.

Now government aaid telcos shall bail this company out entirely and also pay back gov 450M.

This is classic failed gov business looking for bailout …

Look at the way DNB spent their 5B,

1. Office in one of the most expensive place in KL
2. Advertise on most expensive billboard all around KL (they only have 6 telcos as customers)
3. Heard their employees also paid in premium
4. Have events/campaigns everywhere to promote 5G some even overseas

This is a forced bail out. Umobile fortunately doesnt have to be part of this bailout.

If 5 companies paying the bill, each company has to fork out 1B over 10 years meaning 100M per annum from their profit to settle DNB 5B debt.

Biggest winner is Ericason getting 5B out of DNB deal.

This post has been edited by p4n6: Nov 30 2024, 06:46 AM

In 2022, while the world already launched 5G in 2020, Malaysia telco mostly still using 4G - that is why we are the slowest speed in region. Gov been withholding the spectrum but blame it on telco not launching 5G. Most telcos like Celcom and Maxis already claimed they are hardware ready waiting for spectrum to enable 5G in 2019.

Your comparison is always biased without stating the amount of users in the network and time period of 5G launch for Malaysia vs other countries 5G.

The right way to compare is based on same amount of users but the info not easy to acquire therefore shall compare based on year of launch. A 3 year old 5G networks vs a 3 year old 5G network.

DNB 5G speed is observably slowing down now … are we still fastest in the world?

What i observe was DNB start self proclaiming fastest and this and that after few months launch to compare with other telcos in region been using 5G for years.

The agenda i saw probably Ericsson want to show the world single wholesale network (only 1 in the world) works so the marketing cost throws in to buy all the biased recognition.

From an investor point of view, reason no telco wants DNB cause:

1. DNB using Ericsson hardware which none telcos in Malaysia using, incompatibility is an issue.
2. DNB has MOF as major shareholders and golden share, no reason to buy into DNB when cant control + potential fund mismanagement or songlap will happen as like most GLC
3. DNB as per gov is not for profit making company - why buy into company that purpose not to make money?

DNB is a shithole made by MOF now looking for telco to cover the hole. The concept is a problem the first place + Ericsson as equipment vendor. It will be a long road to come out with a solution for DNB, and network quality will deteriote without gov continue to pump money to build sites.

Second wholesale network will have better potential by the outlook.

India is one operator using 100Mhz+20Mhz, Malaysia currently is 6 operators sharing 100Mhz+20Mhz …

So our speed if all fully using technically will be 5-6x slower than rest of the world …

Cell densification is equipment vendor wet dream since telco needs to build more sites … that is why vendor like Ericsson hardsell single wholesales to Malaysia government knowing with limited spectrum shared by so many telcos have no choice but to pay Ericsson to build more to get to same level as 100Mhz per operator as in other countries …

Hope UM exit with another telco then can offload abit … but UM has existing LTE bands can enable more CA or even refarm their LTE to 5G since they using Huawei/ZTE, great benefits to Umobile.

The rest of the poor operators like Maxis and CDB will have to suck up to DNB and Ericsson single wholesales network scam … i bet Opensignal and Okla never measure the time our connections stuck in 5G and cant browse which have to disable 5G to resume connection experience …

Gov only want coverage aka the 5G icon, so they can boast about coverage. This is 2G era mobile measurement. However as data user, we all know have 4G icon doesnt mean can good data service/experience - capacity differentiate operator to operator.

My personal experience a lot of time with 5G icon but data wont load, all these those Ookla/Opensignal report wont show. If cant even load then cant measure. Hassle for user to disable 5G. If like this might as well just use 4G.

This inconsistency may cause people just off 5G …

If only measure slow and fast samples then median makes sense but whether “nothing can be loaded” is also part of the samples maybe you let us know. If i cant load Speedtest, how they know my problem and capture as part of their data.

Is like rating food tastiness, if food not even serve, how to give my rating? I order 10 meal, 5 not serve, 4 delicious, 1 suck. So, 80% tasty?

Nasi sudah menjadi bubur … Hope UM can surpass expectation to be savior of 5G service …

Thought both DNB and UM get 2x20Mhz? The 2X20Hz for DL and UL, so 400Mbps abit exaggerated… i think barely 100Mbps DL.

Remaining on 700Mhz if not mistaken use for digital TV broadcasting by Altel.

Actually abit different with fibre. LTE Bandwidth Capacity is download speed for a single user at the best radio condition possible with supported device of all the possible capabilities. Quite dynamic.

Even if assume very optimum (standing in front of the antenna holding the top 4G phone in market) how 20Mhz LTE can give 400Mbps? Is that even possible theoretically?

There you go, DL 200Mbps as per the explaination in article for 1x20Mhz. If is not 700Mhz, it can go higher, low band has some have limitations.

The 2x20Mhz is for DL 20Mhz and UL 20MHz cause is operating in FDD. It is written that way for a reason (2x20Mhz instead 40Mhz)
So, is not 2x20Mhz= 40Mhz for DL only. So cannot multiply by 2 (this in the article is incorrect).

Or maybe the article add the up and down speed to get 350-400Mbps, which usually people dont say that … DL and UL usually mention separately not cumulatively. Quota GB usually will mention together but not the speed.

In the beginning all the 2x40Mhz given to DNB but gotta vomit back for UM in this case. Both DNB and UM shall receive 2x20Mhz each eventually.

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.

I think he meant Low Band and Low Band CA not supported. Thats why 700,800 and 900 CA are challenging.