As you should know by now, U Mobile was chosen as the second 5G network provider in Malaysia. To be honest, we were quite surprised. The same applies to CelcomDigi and Maxis. The latter even asked for an explanation, which MCMC responded to.
If you take a trip to MCMC's Twitter X page, you can read a long statement explaining why the government chose U Mobile. There are three key aspects to this - (1) Business plan and technical planning developed by U Mobile, (2) Records of customer complaints and satisfaction rates and (3) U Mobile's performance in implementing the Jendela Phase 1 window infrastructure initiative and the previous 4G Upgrade Project.
The last point is an interesting one and MCMC actually has the data to back up its claims. A JENDELA Phase 1 Concluding Report can be found right here and here's what we found. In the 'Performance for Base Station Upgrades' section, U Mobile and YTL have achieved a 100% rate, followed by Digi (99.93%), Celcom (99.86%) and Maxis (99.60%).
There is a footnote below, though. It says the delay happened due to local authority approval. Moreover, access to the remote sites under the USP projects requires a longer time to upgrade. So while Maxis may have the highest number of base stations when compared to U Mobile, it still didn't reach the target.
In the second chart (Performance 4G New Towers), it was stated that Maxis achieved its target for Phase 1 with 100%, while U Mobile completed it at 99.67% (not that far off, really). Both Celcom and Digi have failed to reach their target but once again, it is due to local authority approval under USP projects and all sites are expected to be completed by the end of 2023.
There are other things that MCMC mentioned in its statement. This includes the high foreign shareholding percentage in U Mobile but it was already announced that the orange telco will reduce the number of foreign shareholders to 20%. U Mobile will also be provided and charged with 5G spectrum bands. Should the company fail to exercise its responsibilities, penalties will be imposed by MCMC.
As for the 'records of customer complaints and satisfaction rates', there are no reports available about it. However, our dear readers did not hold back their frustrations about CelcomDigi's performance after the merger. You can check out the article here and let us know what you think of all the telcos' performance while you're at it.
COMMENTS