KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia's 5G rollout has been impressive, achieving remarkable progress within just two years of its nationwide launch, however, there is still room for further expansion and increased adoption.
According to a recent report by Ookla, a few pieces of the puzzle still need to fall into place before 5G can be widely adopted in Malaysia.
"Apart from encouraging users with 5G-capable devices to adopt 5G services, around 45 per cent of tests were carried out on non-5G devices, leaving a significant portion of users in the country still reliant on 4G," Ookla industry analyst Affandy Johan said in the report.
Affandy emphasised the essential roles played by the government and regulatory authorities in ensuring widespread accessibility to 5G.
He also stressed that with all operators committed to offering 5G services, they must uphold the responsibility of maintaining affordable service costs and educating consumers about the benefits.
"Earlier this year, the Malaysian government announced its plan to transition to a dual network model once the current rollout under Digital Nasional Bhd (DNB) has reached the targeted 80 per cent coverage of populated areas.
"However, the impact of this transition and factors such as the speed of the rollout, 5G adoption, and infrastructure management by operators remains to be determined and requires further assessment," he noted.
Earlier this year, the government announced plans to transition to a dual network model once the current rollout under DNB has reached the targeted 80 per cent coverage of populated areas.
Ookla data shows that the country's 5G performance has been impressive, ranking as one of the top performers globally, or third specfically for download speed with a reported speed of 485.25 megabytes per second (Mbps).
Ookla's Speedtest Intelligence data reveals that Malaysia has experienced a noteworthy increase in mobile median download speeds for all technologies since the launch of its first 5G network.
In September this year, Malaysia's median mobile download speed increased to 61.50 Mbps, 2.9 times faster than the 21.27 Mbps median download speed recorded in September 2021, before the launch of 5G in the country.
As a result, Malaysia has improved its position on the Speedtest Global Index, climbing 45 places from 86th in September 2021 to 41st in September this year.
This places Malaysia ahead of some of its Southeast Asia neighbouring countries such as Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam, as well as some developed markets including the United Kingdom, Japan and Germany.
"According to Speedtest Intelligence data in the thrid quarter (Q3) of 2023, Malaysia ranked third globally for 5G download speed, with a reported speed of 485.25 Mbps.
"This puts Malaysia ahead of its Southeast Asian neighbors, such as Singapore (338.36 Mbps), Thailand (141.65 Mbps), and the Philippines (124.58 Mbps)," Affandy said.
Affandy said based on its analysis in Q3 2023, out of all the mobile tests initiated by consumers in Malaysia across all technologies, 30.1 per cent of them were carried out on the 5G network.
This suggests that the adoption and usage of 5G technology among the general population in Malaysia still needs to improve.
"Although Malaysia launched its 5G network later than most neighbouring countries in the region, its percentage of 5G users, while lower, is still noteworthy.
"In comparison, early 5G adopters such as Thailand and Taiwan, which launched their 5G network almost two years ahead of Malaysia, have a slightly higher percentage of devices connected to 5G, at less than 10 percentage points more," he added.
Over 55 per cent of all nationwide tests by Ookla were conducted on 5G-capable devices in Q3 2023. However, only 25.1 per cent of those tests were conducted on a 5G network.
Operators with a lower subscriber base in the country reported a better percentage of speed tests conducted on the local 5G network, Affandy noted.
As for the 4G LTE performance, he said it has seen continued improvement alongside 5G rollout.
"Median download speeds on 4G have increased from 24.04 Mbps to 36.95 Mbps from Q3 2022 to Q3 2023. 5G network offers much stronger performance than 4G, with 5G providing 13 times faster download speeds and five times faster upload speeds than 4G," Affandy said.
In 2021, the government established Digital Nasional Bhd for rolling out a nationwide single wholesale network (SWN) to deliver 5G coverage.
According to DNB, the 5G SWN model aimed to centralise infrastructure rollout, promoting efficient resource use, cost savings and equitable 5G access across urban and rural landscapes.
YTL Group's Yes was the first operator to enter into the access agreement with DNB and launch 5G services in Malaysia in Q4 2021.
Following Yes, other operators such as Celcom, Digi, Unifi (Telekom Malaysia) and U Mobile launched their 5G services in early November 2022. In August this year, Maxis became the latest operator to launch 5G services.