Malaysia’s three major telcos, Telekom Malaysia (TM), Celcom and Digi, signed a wholesale bandwidth deal to provide extensive backhaul infrastructure for broadband rollout in the country on Friday.
Under the agreement, TM will provide wholesale bandwidth connectivity via TM Next-Gen Backhaul services for aggregation and access sites jointly owned by Celcom (via subsidiary Celcom Networks) and DiGi, covering between 3,000-km and 5,000-km in Peninsular Malaysia.
The deal is part of an ongoing network collaboration between Celcom and DiGi announced in early 2011, that aims to roll out more than 10,000-km of fiber network nationwide, the companies said in a joint statement.
“This partnership reiterates TM’s commitment in providing an open access for all MCMC-licensed service providers, allowing these operators to provide and deliver high quality services to their end users hence further strengthening our position as a neutral service provider,” said TM Group chief executive, Tan Sri Zamzamzairani Mohd Isa.
The collaboration, he added, spans more than ten years and involves two phases.
“The first phase will be over a three year period starting from 2014 until 2016 followed by the second phase deployment of additional sites for mobile access and aggregator sites across Peninsular Malaysia,” Tan Sri Zamzamzairani said.