In a media briefing at Menara Celcom recently, the mobile operator told MalaysianWireless that it is upgrading the 3G network nationwide to support faster data speeds.
The company said it is working on upgrading its 3G network to support download speeds of up to 21Mbps this year. It has already upgraded most part of the network in the Klang Valley and soon will focus the upgrade at key locations nationwide such as state capital by the end of this year.
The 3G operator will further upgrade the network to support 42Mbps however it will only be focused at key areas especially in the Klang Valley. The upgrade is expected to take place until next year and targeted at current 3.5G sites.
In a statement, Celcom said that it will invest up to RM300 million over the next three years on streamlining the current network towards 4G LTE (Long Term Evolution), with faster download speeds of up to 150Mbps and more than six times throughput capacity.
Celcom said it is the 1st mobile operator to complete its Single RAN (Radio Access Network) exercise nationwide to be LTE-ready. It claims that it spent about RM800mil to do so.
The mobile operator currently has more than 5,000 3G sites and over 7,000 2G sites nationwide. As of 1Q this year, Celcom has about 12 million customers and over 947,000 mobile broadband users.
