Following its participation in the 5G Demonstration Project (5GDP) in Langkawi and Subang Jaya, Telekom Malaysia (TM) has equipped its headquarters, Menara TM in Kuala Lumpur with 5G technology.
Walking the talk
The initiative is a testament to the telecoms giant’s commitment to progressively deploy its converged 5G core network towards accelerating the delivery of 5G services nationwide.
“Our focus this year is to become 5G-ready in adapting to the coinciding rise in mobile connectivity, IoT, cloud services and smart devices,” said Dato’ Noor Kamarul Anuar, Nuruddin, group executive officer of TM.
TM is preparing themselves for the impending availability of the 5G spectrum through full-fledged 5G live trials via the 5GDP whilst continuously upgrading its core network.
TM said, as the national telecommunications infrastructure provider of Malaysia’s Digital Nation aspirations, it will continue to lay the foundation for the Industrial Revolution 4.0 (IR4.0) and rolling out 5G nationwide for the benefit all Malaysians and the nation.
TM Group, alongside TM ONE, its enterprise and public sector business arm; and TM R&D, its innovation arm, is currently running full-fledged 5G live trials under the 5GDP, an initiative by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) in Subang Jaya, Selangor and Langkawi. The group is actively testing new 5G features, exploring 5G technology via 5G-enabled smart solution and use cases, as well as assessing the best way to deploy 5G infrastructure nationwide.
Spearheading Malaysia’s 5G journey
TM’s early 5G efforts through 5GDP have put the group in the forefront of the 5G race. It has the distinction of being the first telco in the world to deploy 700MHz and 3.5GHZ C-Band spectrums on Standalone (SA) dedicated 5G network simultaneously.
The company is also the first in the country to establish a 5G Command Centre (5GCC) in Langkawi, deploy 5G Core Network (5GC), 700Mhz and 3.5GHz SA dedicated 5G network and a 5G Centralised Radio Access Network (RAN). Additionally, the company has also achieved 1.5GBps speeds within its 11-strong 5G use case sites. The use cases deployed cover Smart City, Smart Tourism and Smart Agriculture clusters.
Thanks to 5GDP, TM has successfully equipped Langkawi with 5G, making it the first Smart Tourism Island in the world.
5GDP in Langkawi involves 35 use cases in six verticals at 25 live 5G sites, actively operating since October 2019 and will continue until March 2020, with a total investment of MYR101 million.
Malaysia is on track to commercially roll out 5G in the third quarter of 2020. The MCMC said Malaysia has laid the foundation to be at the frontier in deploying 5G in Southeast Asia.
Header photo: Jonstudio VIA Flickr
