In a recent interview with the Telekom Malaysia (TM) Group CEO, it was reported that the Telecommunication company now has over 1 million Unifi mobile customers.
Unveiled in January 2018, the Unifi Mobile services are operated by Webe Digital Sdn Bhd, a Telekom Malaysia subsidiary.
According to Dato’ Noor Kamarul Anuar Nuruddin, Unifi Mobile had less than 500,000 mobile subscriptions about one year ago, but they now have over one million subscribers.”When I came in, the customer base was less than 500,000. Right now, we already have more than a million unifi mobile customers,” reports The Edge Markets. Dato’ Noor Kamarul Anuar Nuruddin was appointed Group CEO of TM in June 2019.
In the same report, the TM Group CEO said that webe had some roaming arrangements with other operators, which was bleeding the company dry. Currently Unifi Mobile customers are able to roam on the Celcom 3G network for voice and Internet service. The TM Group CEO said that his new management team negotiated the arrangements to a better rate.
Apart from these, TM also had issues with its new 4G LTE network, which ran on the 2x10MHz band on the 850MHz spectrum, among the 3 frequencies it is currently using to offer the mobile services.
Unfortunately, the band interfered with other frequency bands, “resulting in bad reception”.
“Only 5MHz could be used (2x5MHz) and because of that, the performance was not that great. So, what we did was we removed the WiMAX network on the 2.3GHz spectrum, and we implemented the LTE,” the TM Group CEO said.
The article also mentioned about TM putting a stop to the fibre infrastructure development in the past, “because the MSAP made a lot of the investments commercially unviable,”
“But the new management resumed investments as it recognised that fibre network development had to continue for future growth. Restarting the halted project meant substantial investment,”
Telekom Malaysia (TM) is currently the sole developer of the national High Speed Broadband (HSBB) network which is currently being used to offer the commercial fibre broadband services such as Unifi and Maxis Home Fibre, among others.
Commenting on TM’s monopoly in another report from New Straits Times, the TM Group CEO said that “TM had spent some RM20 billion in establishing fixed line telephony, over RM4.4 billion on copper broadband, RM16 billion for fibre broadband and another RM2.2 billion on mobile infrastructure in the country,”
He said TM’s investment structures and operations were different from other telco players, which focus on the profitability, as opposed to TM’s aspiration to build the national telecommunications industry.
“TM wants to develop the country’s telecommunications sector and be the backbone of the government’s agenda in developing this infrastructure for the benefit of the people.
“Hence, it is unfair to say that TM monopolises the industry because what we do is based on the needs of the country. Our investments are long-term for the people and the country.
“We continue to invest in new developments where others (telco players) have shied away. Moreover, we also implemented extensive corporate responsibility initiatives in education, community and the environment,” he said.
