Local mobile operator DiGi has revealed a plan to upgrade its network to be LTE-ready within the next 1 year. The company claims that it currently has 5,000 base stations in the country and plans to upgrade 400-sites on average, every month.
The ambitious project includes expanding the current 3G and 2G network to cover 95.8% of the human population in Malaysia.
At present, the DiGi Turbo network promises speeds between 700Kbps to 1Mbps. DiGi claim its upcoming LTE-ready network will offer fibre speeds allowing customers to use social networking, online video streaming, digital music downloads and cloud services.
As the upgrade involves physical change of hardware at DiGi’s network towers, customers might experience up to 4 hours downtime per day, over a period of 7 days at areas where the upgrades are taking place. During this period which includes peak and off peak hours(office hours might be affected), customers will experience service disruption including the difficulties to make or receive calls, and use the Internet.
MalaysianWireless is not sure how DiGi plans to compensate customers for the downtime.
The upgrade has already started last week(Dec 13). The areas affected are Petaling Jaya, Shah Alam and Subang Jaya for the month of December 2011. As the upgrade will take place nationwide throughout 2012, DiGi customers are advised to check the upgrade schedule here, unfortunately, there are no details on the exact time or hours.
DiGi defines LTE with download speeds of up to 300Mbps and upload speeds of up to 75Mbps. It claims to be the first fully LTE-equipped network in Malaysia by the end of 2012.
[Source]– DiGi The Tomorrow Network
