Photo shows (from left) Choo, Chong, Suresh, and Ashton during the roundtable session yesterday.
KUCHING: Celcom Axiata Bhd (Celcom) has identified Sarawak, Sabah, and the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia as key network areas and has, enhanced its partnership with globally renowned Ericsson to provide higher level of network quality here.
The telco said it is investing approximately RM200 million for East Malaysia of which 60 per cent or circa RM120 million has been allocated for the enhancement of services and technology in Sarawak, which includes the roll-out of 4G or long term evolution (LTE).
Celcom’s chief corporate and operations officer Suresh Sidhu during a roundtable session yesterday said, “Sarawak is one of Celcom’s heartland markets. We want to make sure that we build the right network for the future of Sarawak.”
He outlined that Celcom has had a partnership with Ericsson dating back to the last 20 to 30 years and the communications technology and services providers has been the telco’s key technology supplier for the East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia, Sabah and Sarawak.
The partnership with Ericsson is expected to help in the the big process of rolling out and ensuring quality roll-out of Celcom’s network in the eastern region, he said.
In a press statement, Celcom said the collaboration between Celcom and Ericsson is to address end-to-end network quality improvement, customer experience on voice and data services, and overall network performance at 10 cities in the Eastern Region.
These includes Kuching, Miri, Sibu, Bintulu, Kota Kinabalu, Sandakan, Tawau, Kuantan, Kuala Terengganu and Kota Bharu.
Todd Ashton, president of Ericsson Malaysia and Sri Langka, also said, “We’d like to bring all these experience which we have gained from various, diverse markets like that in Bangladesh, New York and Tokyo, and also we’d like to provide our technology which we have deployed to cities such as New York and Tokyo, to Sarawak by combining our technologies with Celcom.”
Ericsson is set to provide network and subscriber behaviour analysis, and optimisation of radio network equipment for the Eastern Region.
Meanwhile, on the investment in Sarawak, Celcom has reiterated its commitment to improve its services and continue its LTE roll-out programme across the state.
Chief sales and commercial officer of Celcom, Eric Chong said, “In the past, this region (Sabah and Sarawak) is typically a more voice centric area. In terms of that, we have invested more into the voice more than data.
“But over the past year and a half, because of the explosion of the adoption of data, we have decided to come back to make a major investment (in this region).”
Currently, Celcom has 891 sites in Sarawak and intends to upgrade 236 sites within the year which includes the installation of 3G at 141 sites while 95 sites will be LTE-enabled.
In Kuching, there are 30 LTE-commissioned sites and Celcom is aiming to have 44 LTE sites in Kuching by mid-year.
When asked on 4G/LTE areas Celcom is planning to cover in Kuching, Suresh said, “We want to cover as much of Kuching as possible so probably the business centres to across the residential areas.”
He added, “In Sibu and Miri, we will have a few sites there which we are currently testing, but the plan is also to roll out to those town.
“We have plans to have good 4G/LTE coverage in Bintulu, Miri, Sibu, while in Sabah; Kota Kinabalu, Tawau, and Sandakan.”
Overall, Celcom aims to have 1,200 active sites nationwide by mid year, and 2,014 by year end.
Suresh has also noted that Celcom is looking to improve its internet traffic by making it easier and faster for its customers. He revealed that Celcom is currently working with regional telcos to design an ‘international internet connectivity’ to ease internet traffic and make internet browsing a lot faster.
The roundtable session was organised by Celcom and Ericsson to offer the media insights on Celcom’s future plans on its network enhancement efforts in East Malaysia particularly in Sarawak. Also present during the vent was head of Regional Sales Sabah and Sarawak Choo Meng Chung.