Malaysian WiMAX: Better Late Than Never?

YTL e-Solutions, one of Malaysia’s four 2.3GHz WiMax spectrum license holders, was perceived a laggard as it had missed an August 2008 deadline to deploy WiMax services commercially. Now YTL announced they will work with Samsung to implement its WiMax network across the country. It is expected to be rolled out nationwide in July 2010.

YTL is targeting 14 million new WiMAX subscribers in five years, says executive director Tan Sri Dr Francis Yeoh.

The slow progress among Malaysia WiMAX licensees prompted then - Energy, Water and Communications Minister Shaziman Abu Mansor to issue a warning last August, threatening to withdraw their licenses if they failed to deliver, reports ZDNet Asia.
Malaysia, like Taiwan, India and China saw the technology as an opportunity to provide broadband wireless to their citizens while providing a wedge into the global telcommunications markets.

The LTE market, dominated by Ericsson, Nokia, Motorola and Alcatel-Lucent would be a tough nut to crack. WiMAX provided an opening. But world-wide, the upstart broadband wireless technology is almost two years late, out of the gate and LTE is on deck for Verizon’s launch this fall. The window of opportunity is closing fast.

In June 2008, YTL e-Solutions signed an agreement with U.S.-based Clearwire for technical expertise and partnered Cisco Services Malaysia in November 2008 to establish its WiMax core network in peninsular Malaysia. Malaysia’s YTL Group, the parent of YTL e-Solutions, had reported that they plan to invest 2.5 billion ringgit ($688.7M USD) over five years to roll out the network.
In August last year, Packet One Networks (P1) became the first licensee to launch WiMax services in Malaysia. Asiaspace commercially launched its WiMax service on Aug. 30 last year, while Redtone International was the first to launch WiMax in East Malaysia.
In other news, Saudi-based Mobily, which currently owns two thirds of the Kingdom’s 12,000 kilometer fiberoptic network, has rolled out Broadband@Home using a WiFi/WiMAX router. It covers four main cities: Riyadh, Jeddah, Dammam and Khobar and will soon be extended to other cities.