This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily on April 18, 2019

KUALA LUMPUR: Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM), which is awaiting the necessary regulations and guidelines from the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) on the roll-out of 5G technology, has said that the implementation of 5G will present the group with a new growth area.

Speaking to reporters yesterday at the MCMC’s technology showcase in Putrajaya, TM’s unifi general manager of product design Nazeem Nasir said the group is ready to start implementing 5G now.

“It (the implementation of the 5G network) is at a preliminary stage today because we are still working [it] out with our regulator, the MCMC, on this.

“We are not at the planning stage anymore. We have already done a commercial deployment of a pre-5G network a month ago, which allows us to test all the different variables that will be required when we go live for 5G,” said Nazeem, adding that there is no concrete timeline at the moment for 5G deployment.

When asked about the earnings impact from the eventual 5G roll-out, he said it is too early to assess, and that he believes the impact would be bigger on TM’s customers, especially businesses including small and medium enterprises, and the way they conduct their business.

In the meantime, as to whether TM is looking at expanding its pre-5G network sites beyond the mixed-used development of SetiaWalk Puchong, which it launched in March as its first pre-5G network in Malaysia, Nazeem said the group is getting feedback from customers and will select areas it believes best warrant the expansion.

Mahmoud Dasser, the vice president cum chief marketing officer of TM One — TM’s enterprise and public-sector business solutions arm — added that the implementation of 5G will result in a shift of focus to the number of connections, compared to subscribers.

“5G is really about machine-to-machine connectivity. We will have to start tracking ... the number of machines connecting to 5G and the productivity levels linked to their connection to the network,” said Mahmoud.

When asked if TM would be looking at other 5G partners besides Chinese telco Huawei, Nazeem said it is too early to tell what decision the group would take on the matter.

“The current showcase is powered by our partner, Huawei, but the real deployment is something we need to finalise once this project (the implementation of TM’s 5G network) gets going,” added Nazeem.