Celcom, TM sign agreement for additional LTE sites

PETALING JAYA: Celcom Axiata Bhd and Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM) have signed an agreement on the provisioning of additional long-term evolution (LTE) sites through TM's Next-Gen Backhaul (NGBH) services.
The agreement, signed yesterday, follows the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed in November 2013. Under the Phase 2 network collaborative agreement, TM will continue to support Celcom's transmission requirements.
"This collaboration will essentially avert unnecessary duplication of network infrastructures and strategically, will enable Celcom to be operationally efficient as the industry matures. Through the inking of the agreement, additional LTE sites, provisioned by TM across Malaysia, with a special focus for Putrajaya, the Klang Valley, Johor Bahru, Pahang, Terengganu and Kelantan, will be fiberised, and this will cater to extensive and robust backhaul with high bandwidth capacity for a 10-year period," said Celcom and TM in a joint statement yesterday.
TM's NGBH service will increase Celcom's coverage and ramp up its capacity in a shorter time due to TM's existing capacity and fibre coverage, allowing Celcom to focus on its core business while outsourcing the backhaul planning and deployment to TM.
"The demand for high speed and quality internet services has accelerated in the country. Malaysians have become technologically astute and require access to always-on, high-speed data connectivity to cater to their increasing needs. With this leasing opportunity for access and aggregation of fiber network from TM, Celcom will be able to obtain quick access to fiber infrastructure to support our future network capacity demands, in order to deliver affordable and high-quality internet connectivity to more Malaysians," said Celcom CEO Datuk Seri Shazalli Ramly.
"The signing of this agreement reiterates TM's commitment in providing an open access for all Malaysian Communications Multimedia Commission-licensed service providers - allowing these operators to provide and deliver value-added services to their end-users hence further strengthening TM's position as a neutral service provider and as an Information Exchange," said TM group CEO Tan Sri Zamzamzairani Mohd Isa.
Following this partnership, Celcom subscribers will be able to enjoy seamless and quality services via their mobile devices everywhere and anywhere, as it paves way for nationwide fiber coverage and will greatly improve the resiliency of the network.
The two parties said the collaboration is in line with the government's call for greater industry partnerships and at the same time promoting healthy competition among the telco players as service providers will be focusing on delivering improved customer experience and better value offerings, which ultimately will benefit Malaysian consumers as a whole.