Malaysia’s U Mobile is planning to open several new stores in Penang and one in Johor Bahru this year.
According to Chief Executive Kaizad Herjee, U Mobile currently operates nine stores and has planned several more to increase its market presence. The company is also planning to expand its network to 4,000 base stations from the current 1,000 over the next one to two years.
Malaysia’s U Mobile has opened its flagship store at the ground floor of Berjaya Times Square. To celebrate the opening of the store, U Mobile will hold a one-day sale called the ’1+1 Just for U’ campaign offering HTC Wildfire and BlackBerry Curve 9300 devices.
The promotion also includes a 30-days promotion which offers entries in the draw for handset or game console prizes when customers activate their postpaid subscription.
Malaysia’s U Mobile has announced its plans to deploy a 100-Mbps-capable LTE network across key cities, and upgrade and extend its existing HSPA+ network.
According to the company, central and northern areas of the country as well as the south-western region of Negeri Sembilan will see increased 42-Mbps mobile coverage during the second half of 2011. The company is also planning to upgrade the maximum connection speed of its HSPA+ network to 84 Mbps over the next 12 months.
It further added that it will launch LTE-ready platforms with a view to providing 100-Mbps mobile broadband services once it has acquired the necessary airwaves.
According to Kaizad Heerjee, CEO of U Mobile, the introduction of this mobile broadband network is a strategic impetus to their ambition of becoming a major player in Malaysia’s fast-growing mobile data market.
Chinese vendor ZTE has been selected to upgrade U Mobile’s current HSPA+ network as well as deploy its LTE infrastructure.
According to the kit maker’s Asia-Pacific President Zheng Bang, Malaysia is an important market for ZTE in the Asia-Pacific region. He added that the company’s work with U Mobile will be an important showcase of its technology.
LTE has yet to launch in Malaysia, but local regulator the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) is planning to auction nine blocks of LTE spectrum in the 2.5GHz and 2.6GHz-bands during 2011.
As per reports, four licences will be awarded to the country’s mobile operators Celcom, DiGi.com, U Mobile and Maxis and another four allocated to Malaysia’s four WiMAX players Asiaspace, Packet One, YTL and Redtone. A company controlled by billionaire Malaysian businessman Syed Mokhtar Al-Bukhary has been linked with a move for the ninth licence.
Malaysia’s 3G mobile network operator U Mobile has signed a deal with ZTE for the expansion of its HSPA network and the eventual launch of an LTE upgrade in key cities.
The agreement is a joint development which will see U Mobile extending its 42 Mbps mobile network to Central, Western and Northern areas of the country by the second half of 2011 for the first phase. This will be followed by the installation of LTE platforms which can support 100 Mbps across Malaysia in the near future.
No financial or timeline details were provided.
DiGi Telecommunications, Malaysia’s mobile network operator has reportedly submitted its business plan to the country’s telecoms regulator related to its proposed use of spectrum in the 2600MHz band.
The operator made the submission following the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission’s (MCMC’s) award of frequencies in the 2600MHz band last year; in October 2010 the regulator had assigned spectrum to nine companies, including DiGi.
It is understood that the regulator required each company to put forward a business plan regarding how the frequencies would be used.
According to DiGi, the board believes that the spectrum will enable the company to provide enhanced mobile broadband services to customers.
Those other companies that have been told they will be allocated frequencies are: mobile operators Celcom, Maxis, DiGi and U-Mobile; WiMAX players Asiaspace, Packet One Networks (P1), REDtone and YTL Communications; and a new company, Puncak Semangat.
The MCMC has confirmed that all nine will be required to pay for the allocated spectrum, although it has yet to disclose how much the additional spectrum will cost each operator. Access to the frequencies in question is not expected until the beginning of 2013.
Malaysian mobile network operator U Mobile has announced that it has enabled its first base station with Dual Carrier HSPA+ (DC-HSPA+) technology, allowing it to offer downlink speeds of up to 42Mbps.
According to reports, the first cell site to benefit from the upgrade is located in Berjaya Times Square, and the cellco is planning to roll out the technology to other areas in the Klang Valley in the coming weeks.
According to Dr Kaizad Heerjee, U Mobile’s chief executive officer, with the rollout of this new technology, U Mobile will be the first service provider in Malaysia to begin the deployment of a commercial mobile broadband service capable of delivering speeds of up to 42Mbps using HSPA+ … U Mobile’s subscribers will soon be able to enjoy superior mobile broadband service that offers high download speed and fast response time with the use of HSPA+ capable USB modems.’
U Mobile and Celcom Axiata have extended their agreement on domestic roaming for another three years.
Under the updated contract between the two companies U Mobile customers will continue operate over Celcom’s 2G network in those areas where the U Mobile 3G network is not present.
According to U Mobile chief executive officer, Dr Kaizad Heerjee, the seamless integration between U Mobile’s 3G network and Celcom’s 2G network would deliver an unparallel level of mobile communications to the end-users who constantly needed to stay connected. This move demonstrates the industry’s ability to arrive at a commercial agreement that helps meet the objective of the Ministry of Information Communication and Culture to benefit the consumers by providing nationwide coverage.
As part of the revised deal, at an undisclosed time later this year U Mobile subscribers will also be able to access data services, like mobile internet and multimedia messaging (MMS), over the Celcom network.
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: In order to buy 2.37% stake in telecommunications company U Mobile Sdn. Bhd. for MYR54 million, an agreement has been signed between Malaysian diversified group Multi-Purpose Holdings Bhd and unlisted Detik Ria Sdn Bhd.
Having interests in gaming and financial services, Multi-Purpose has also separately completed an earlier agreement to buy a 1.98% stake in U Mobile from unlisted U Television Sdn. Bhd. for MYR75 million.
According to the group, it has also subscribed for an additional 1.98% stake in U Mobile for MYR15 million as part of an earlier one-for-one rights issue declared by U Mobile and the series of acquisitions amounts to a combined stake of 7.72% in U Mobile at a total cost of MYR144 million.
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: A part of the stake is agreed to be sold by Berjaya Group, the single largest shareholder in U Mobile which is Malaysia’s fourth-placed mobile network operator. The stake will be acquired by Singapore Technologies Telemedia (STT) in a deal worth around MYR626 million (USD183.81 million). STT is one of the major shareholders in Singaporean telco StarHub. The talks between two companies began in September 2009.
U Mobile’s hunt for a strategic investor would be ended by the completion of the deal. U Mobile needed an investor since September 2009 when Japan’s NTT DoCoMo and South Korea’s KT Corp announced to sell their combined 33% stake in the Malaysian cellco for USD200 million.
www.WirelessFederation.com/news: The subscribers of 3G operator U Mobile can now roam on DiGi’s EDGE network as the company has signed a 3-year domestic roaming agreement with DiGi.
The roaming agreement with DiGi will allow U Mobile subscribers to enjoy voice, SMS and data services (GPRS/EDGE) nationwide including flawless hand-over of voice calls from U Mobile’s 3G network to DiGi’s 2G network.
DiGi’s EDGE networks will formally be inducted only after the domestic agreement with Celcom ends, thus making it an exclusive provider of domestic roaming traffic services for U Mobile. Celcom and U Mobile signed a domestic roaming agreement, limited to voice and SMS in 2007.
