Maxis, the largest mobile operator in Malaysia, named Huawei as a 5G technology supplier, which will upgrade its LTE network to prepare for the rollout of the next-generation mobile services when spectrum is assigned.

As part of an agreement, the Chinese vendor will modernise the operator’s 4G network to be 5G-ready, making use of its existing network investments.

Major upgrades
In February, Maxis and Huawei signed an MoU to cooperate on 5G trials, with the first running for six months in the city of Cyberjaya and focusing on higher spectrum bands.

The operator also is upgrading its transport network to support gigabit speeds and virtualising its core network.

Maxis has a 27 per cent share of mobile subscribers in the country, while Digi holds a 26 per cent share, ahead of Celcom Axiata’s 22 per cent, Q2 data from GSMA Intelligence showed.

The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) set up a 5G task force a year ago and is preparing for commercial 5G launches in 2021 or 2022. The regulator is exploring spectrum assignments in six bands, and will start a public inquiry for the 700MHz, 2300MHz and 2600MHz bands in Q4.

Earlier this week the Malaysia government announced eight companies committed an initial investment of MYR116 million ($27.7 million) to run 5G trials in six states, which kicked off in October and will run for six months.