KUALA LUMPUR: Nokia has confirmed that it is one out of eight companies vying for Digital Nasional Bhd's (DNB) first tender for the national 5G infrastructure.
"Yes, we are talking to DNB and we are participating in that tender.
"We are a global 5G player. We are interested in 5G projects wherever they are including this one," Nokia Southeast Asia head Daniel Jaeger told reporters during Nokia's virtual media roundtable today.
Last month, it was reported that DNB had invited eight global players including Swedish telecommunications giant Ericsson, Chinese multinational corporations Huawei and ZTE and American multinational technology firm Cisco.
Besides Nokia, others were Japanese multinational NEC, South Korean multinational conglomerate Samsung and FiberHome, an information and communications technology network products and solutions provider in China.
Last week, the New Straits Times reported that DNB had targeted to award its first tender for 5G infrastructure by the third quarter (Q3) of this year.
DNB is the Ministry of Finance-owned special purpose vehicle (SPV) overseeing the deployment of 5G infrastructure and network nationwide.
When contacted recently, DNB said the tender was issued few weeks ago and confirmed that it had invited invited eight all global network equipment providers to participate.
Meanwhile, Nokia announced today that it had been appointed by Allo Technology Sdn Bhd to deploy a gigabit fibre network in Melaka, Johor, Negri Sembilan and the east coast states.
The deployment, which includes Nokia's Gigabit Passive Optical Network solution and Access Management System, will be completed by end of Q2 2021 covering nearly 150,000 homepasses.
When completed, the end-users will be able to enjoy a high-speed broadband network and applications that require high capacity.
"The future-ready fibre network will enable Allo to increase its revenue as it will be able to support new use cases like smart cities, smart poles, edge automation, 5G backhaul, and enterprise services," Nokia said in a statement.
Nokia said its solution would enable Allo to better manage bandwidth in line with the requirement for different services.
"The fibre network will support the convergence of more services and users on the same infrastructure, allowing Allo to bring down operating expenditure and enhance revenue.
"With the new network, Allo will be able to acquire relevant insights into network utilisation as the network grows and new technology enablers are added.
"Nokia's solution will also help Allo benefit from network simplification and easier management of the network," it said.