Two celcos respond to MCMC's warning over 3G services

Two celcos respond to MCMC's warning over 3G services
Posted on 13 December 2013 - 05:36am
Liew Jia Teng
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PETALING JAYA (Dec 13, 2103): The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has sent out warnings to not more than five cellular companies (celcos) for providing 3G services on lower-than-agreed bandwidth, out of which two have submitted their rectification plans, the regulator's chairman Datuk Mohamed Sharil Tarmizi said.

"Two of them have responded with their remedial proposals. However, the rest are yet to submit theirs," Sharil told reporters on the sidelines of the Post-Production, Animation and Creative Content Association of Malaysia's International Creative Content Conference here yesterday.

The regulator has given the celcos that have yet to submit their plans, till end of this month to do so.

Sharil said MCMC is looking at the proposals on the table, but have yet to decide the next course of action to be taken against the celcos, if any.

"We are still looking at their proposals, but one has to understand that this is not just a simple 'What's next? What's next?' question. It doesn't work in that way," he said.

"We will take appropriate actions, which may include imposing a fine if they are found not meeting the service level and quality standard. But it's premature to tell the amount of fine because we have to look at the individual case," he added.

Sharil also said the regulator recognises the increasing utilisation on smart devices and is urging celcos to step up and increase their investments to ensure the network capacity is sufficiently covered.

"What we are facing now is capacity crunch as the demand for broadband and smart devices is under provision and under anticipated, but these (issues) also happen in the US and other places," he explained.

He said the 3G wireless system has a common phenomenon of "cell breathing" where the cell shrinks when it becomes heavily loaded, hence resulting in drop calls.

However, it is difficult for the telco players to do coverage for the cell-planning, he added.

"I'm sympathetic to the celcos and the industry because it is really hard for them to project the investment amount. If you invest too much and people do not consume, you may lose money. But if you under invest, people may get upset because of your quality and capacity issues," said Sharil.

"Today's problem cannot be solved tomorrow. Instead, the problems should have been thought about few years ago, as it takes years to build the network," he added.

He added that companies in any business would want to optimise their investment against the expenditure, but the main challenge for the celco industry is that the players have underestimated the demand of smart devices, which has gone up 30% year-on-year over the past two years.

Sharil also said MCMC has received many complaints coming from the consumers that are not satisfied with the service level of the celcos, despite the commission conducting audit checks every three to six months on their service quality, network coverage, customer dealings and spectrum usage.