Malaysia ready to deploy 5G, says tech expert

Malaysia is ready to deploy the fifth-generation (5G) mobile technology and its diverse level of use cases is one of its strengths, said a technology expert.

Telecommunication-based think-tank Technology Research Project Corporate director Peter Lovelock said Malaysia should expedite the initial use case successes in order to be the frontier in 5G deployment as countries such as Singapore and South Korea are fast approaching.

“5G really means ubiquitous connectivity, ubiquitous access, so the business model is fundamentally important. One of the strengths that Malaysia brings to this is its diverse level of cases and being able to ensure that as we move towards 5G era, how these case studies are developed and accelerated," he told the media on the sidelines of the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) Symposium in Putrajaya on Thursday.

"We really need to look forward to the initial use of successes that we can amplify.”

Lovelock was among the key speakers at the event, attended by about 300 participants including students, academicians, representatives from government agencies, communications and multimedia industry players, practitioners and potential researchers.

Also present was MCMC chief digital officer Gerard Lim Kim Meng.

Lovelock said the cooperation between the government and research institutes are important in supporting local carriers to perform during the experiments.

“We need to enable the experimentation and see where it is working and connecting,” he added.

Under the 2020 Budget, the government has introduced a 5G Ecosystem Development grant worth RM50 million to encourage technological innovation in the country.

Currently, there are a total of 55 use cases under the demonstration phase across 32 sites in six states involving nine verticals for a six-month period from Oct 1, until March 31, next year.

The total investment of the 5G demonstration projects funded by the industry players is RM116 million. 

5G is expected to deliver 10 times higher speed than the current 4G technology, with speeds going beyond 1Gbps (gigabits per second), and will offer far superior user experience and capacity.

The one-day symposium, themed “Malaysia on the Cusp of Hyper-connectivity”, was aimed at capturing the central thrust of a digitally connected nation which also explored the implication of hyper-connectivity made possible by today’s high-speed 4G and fibre connectivity.

- Bernama