PUTRAJAYA: 5G or the 5th generation mobile network is now available to 80% of Malaysians in populated areas according to Communications Minister, Fahmi Fadzil.
The minister said that as of Jan 1st this year, the country’s 5G coverage achieved 80.2 percent in populated areas. This has slightly exceeded the target set by the Prime Minister in the 2023 Budget last year.
The minister added that a task force would be meeting with Digital Nasional Bhd (DNB), the Malaysia Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) and mobile network operators on Friday to discuss the way forward.
“After that, the decision from the task force will be considered by the cabinet and we expect the government to announce the transition from a single wholesale network (SWN) to a dual network (DN), within a month.”
DNB is entrusted with the rollout of the 5G network in Malaysia and would complete the integration and onboarding of 7,509 sites.
According to American semiconductor company Qualcomm, 5G service customers will be able to enjoy up to peak data rates of up to 20Gbps. This will help open users up to cutting-edge experiences such as boundless extreme reality (XR), seamless IoT capabilities, new enterprise applications and much more.