Saturday May 7, 2011
WHILE competition among high-speed fixed and mobile broadband operators is getting increasingly fierce, industry players believe there is room for both to co-exist given the size of the market. Lending credence to this is the different user behaviour among consumers.
According to Frost & Sullivan, wireless broadband has been fast gaining popularity over fixed broadband with almost two million wireless broadband subscribers compared to 1.65 million fixed broadband subscribers in 2010.
In 2009, fixed broadband dominated over wireless broadband with 1.4 million subscribers to 0.9 million subscribers.
Still, fixed broadband will gain market share in 2011 and 2012 due to the introduction of high-speed broadband and wholesale deals by Maxis and Celcom. Governmental support for high-speed broadband will also help drive the fixed broadband market. The Malaysian fixed broadband market is expected to reach 2.2 million subscribers in 2015.
Here is what they have to say:
Datuk Seri Shazalli Ramly
Chief executive officer
Celcom Axiata Bhd
Each player will have its own clarity on how to position its company in the context of the nation's Internet penetration. We are very clear of wanting to be the top mobile broadband player. To allow mobile access to grow you need the mobile smartphones, you can't split the devices any more. The convergence is happening and we definitely want to be in that space.
We will find the ways and means to build a network that allows nomadic and mobile users to access our network and, by design, help to achieve the numbers (broadband penetration rate) that they want.
I feel there is a blurring codependency taking place at the moment not by design but by behaviour.
Mark Dioguardi
Executive vice-president,
network and technology Maxis Bhd
We are now moving into machineto- machine communication and the mass market is looking for reliable and consistent connection.
Since last year, we have been making steady investments to upgrade our systems to provide the widest 3G coverage, geographically and capacity to allow more people to access Maxis.
Good things are happening in Malaysia. If you put Singapore aside, Malaysia is quite aggressive in terms of the fibre-to-home broadband. There have been a lot of progress. It's an Utopian view.
Datuk Seri Zamzamzairani Mohd Isa
Group CEO Telekom Malaysia Bhd
We have to compete. And customer will have a choice. Each provider will serve the needs. There will be newer technologies that will provide competition. It will only benefit the customer. We will have to do our best to fight our corner in the retail side.
We are fixed on fibre but looking at the needs of our customer, we would like to complement it holistically. We are providing WiFi today. When we started last year, we have 2,000 hotspots and now we have 13,000. We will be rolling out WiFi hotspots in more locations that are suitable for customers that need the service.
That is in wireless form.
Michael Lai
Chief Executive Officer
Packet One Networks (PI)
We started from zero and we have diligently invested a lot of money to build our network. Our network is built for data and broadband and we have covered 45% of populated areas in the country. The demand for our services are growing and we are now looking to launch our huddles in one to two months time.
For the future, we are working on a co-existence strategy, taking advantage of our Wimax to test LTE (long term evolution). The migration to LTE for us will not be a costly affair since ZTE claims it would involve only a software upgrade. We started the 4G journey ahead of many others and we want to keep the lead.
Afzal Abdul Rahim
Chief Executive Officer
Time dotCom Bhd
We are focused and we intend to push the boundaries. Since February 2010, we have been providing the fastest Internet speed in Malaysia at 50Mbps and we will bring this service to 170,000 Malaysian homes in 2011.
We also hope to continue playing a major role in being the invisible infrastructure provider to Malaysia's leading operators in transporting their traffic and broadband services on our 100% nationwide fibre optic network.
As a small but nimble player, it is our responsibility to ensure that Malaysians get the internet experience they deserve.
http://biz.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/5/7/business/8617444&sec=business
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