With 3G gone, whither Malaysia’s primary cellular community companies?

• Malaysia’s Jendela roadmap requires 3G community shutdown in favour of upgrades
• Business must proceed cautiously as 3G continues to be integral a part of information companies

THE Malaysian authorities’s telecommunication infrastructure roadmap shall be dictated by a brand new plan often called Jalinan Digital Negara (Jendela), which was launched by the prime minister Muhyiddin Yassin on August 29, 2020.

The nationwide digital infrastructure programme is anticipated to be applied underneath the twelfth Malaysia Plan (2021–2025) and can lay the muse for complete and high-quality broadband protection services in addition to put together the nation for the transition in the direction of 5G know-how, the prime minister famous. 

“Jendela shall be applied by way of a number of phases. Part 1 which runs from now entails an enlargement of 4G cellular broadband protection from 91.8% to 96.8% in populated areas. 

“In addition to that, cellular broadband pace can even be elevated from 25Mbps to 35Mbps, within the course of enabling 7.5 million premises to have entry to gigabyte pace fixed-line broadband protection,” the prime minister had advised native media.

Business regulator, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Fee (MCMC), advised Digital Information Asia (DNA) in a press release that it had undertaken a “laboratory-based” strategy to drawing up Jendela, which concerned a number of authorities companies and key service suppliers from July 17 to August 14.

The result of this session is a five-point motion plan, specifically:

1. Optimising current assets (spectrum and fibre);
2. Rising protection at a quicker tempo;
3. Rising speeds over optimum use of spectrum;
4. Rising high quality of service; and
5. Enhancing infrastructure capability at a quicker tempo.

Full particulars of Jendela will be discovered right here. The MCMC stated though the lab has ended, comply with up work is being actively pursued such because the detailing of the precise technical necessities and websites for the development of the infrastructure.

Jendela can have two main milestones. The primary one, often called Part One, will span 2020 to 2021, while Part Two will start from 2022. The MCMC famous that Part One initiative will comprise six “quick-win” initiatives and two “mid-term” initiatives.

RELATED STORY: Malaysia’s 5G spectrum conundrum: A blessing in disguise?

What’s sunsetting?

Whereas most of the mission targets relate to upgrading and building work, one key quick-win mission has largely gone unnoticed – the “sundown of 3G” community and migration 3G spectrum for 4G know-how use by December 2021. In impact, this implies the turning off of 3G radio infrastructure in order that its spectra might be refarmed for 4G use, which is to occur in roughly 15 months from now.

In DNA’s Telco Deep Dive 2017, one of many main points mentioned was spectrum refarming – the vacating of dated wi-fi know-how occupying a selected frequency band so {that a} new wi-fi know-how can use that frequency band to enhance telco companies to shoppers.

All main operators did refarm their respective spectra and scale back their utilization of their 900MHz and 1800MHz bands to make manner for LTE/ 4G companies in those self same bands. This enabled higher protection and indoor penetration in comparison with working 4G within the larger 2,600MHz band. 

DNA additionally defined that on the time, operators embarking on spectrum refarming can’t utterly filter all 2G spectrum as there may be nonetheless a big group of shoppers utilizing 2G for primary telephony companies. As such, operators would wish to maintain the minimal of two X 5MHz for this use.

Equally, the transfer to utterly flip off 3G spectrum by December 2021 would characterize an enormous problem for operators for a number of causes as a result of 3G know-how continues to be being extensively utilized in Malaysia.

3G shutdown worries

The transfer by MCMC to mandate the sundown of 3G infrastructure has precipitated some consternation amongst some business insiders DNA spoke to anonymously as a result of delicate nature of the problem.

Whereas a number of business senior executives concerned in technical and regulatory points DNA spoke to had been typically in settlement with what the federal government and MCMC have laid out up to now within the Jendela plan, not all are proud of the 3G sundown plan.

“Covid-19 has actually thrown the spanner within the works, and it has pressured the telco business to assist unprecedented earn a living from home / study from house situations, which no operator in Malaysia has a playbook for,” stated one senior govt aware of regulatory points.

“It is in all probability for the most effective, because the enterprise mannequin and use instances for 5G continues to be considerably unclear. So delaying 5G until later could also be fortuitous,” stated one other senior technical govt.

Nonetheless, the concern is not a lot the delay of 5G however the shutting of 3G by finish 2021, the technical govt added.

The technical govt defined, “Operators worldwide had been contemplating shutting off 3G and refarming the spectrum for 4G, so that isn’t the problem. “What’s in competition is the timetable during which to take action, which was speculated to be in operators’ management. The federal government mandating a 2021 deadline makes it extraordinarily difficult for us, as many people had been contemplating solely doing it by 2022/2023.”

The VoLTE problem

There are few key points that have to be addressed if the sundown of 3G networks had been to occur. The primary pertains to the usage of voice over LTE (VoLTE) to exchange circuit-switch fallback (CSFB).

For a few years now, a voice name is switched-back to 3G networks for that decision to be related every time a consumer makes a name in a 4G protection space. This course of is called CSFB. With the introduction of 4G, a brand new sort of course of referred to as VoLTE  is used to hold voice calls, the place voice calls are made into ‘packets’ and transmitted as information simply as how information traverses by way of the Web. 

Whereas 4G know-how helps VoLTE,  not all operators have applied this. Amongst those who have, not all of it’s persistently deployed by way of the complete cellular community. The rationale?

VoLTE shouldn’t be solely depending on community parameters but additionally handset necessities. Moreover, ongoing calls originating on VoLTE can even should be handed over to 3G when cellular customers transfer out of 4G protection. This is the reason legacy 3G networks are being maintained in most nations, as VoLTE protection and capabilities haven’t but reached the identical performance matching that of 3G. 

In line with the GSM Affiliation (GSMA), a world physique representing over 700 operators worldwide, the implementation of VoLTE will be related to many technical challenges as primarily, VoLTE is an information service.

In its report referred to as Legacy cellular community rationalisation: Experiences of 2G and 3G migrations in Asia-Pacific, the GSMA famous that in distinction to typical finest effort Web information site visitors that may be decreased if the hyperlink is of low high quality, VoLTE requires a assured information fee.

“The community responds to those conditions by allocating extra capability assets to the VoLTE name, which can trigger the general high quality of the community to degrade.”

Moreover, the GSMA famous that VoLTE could require substantial funding within the core community and plenty of functionalities within the core should bear intensive optimisation and trials earlier than service launch. 

“Given the declining voice revenues and the related challenges and investments, many operators don’t see the advantage of an early VoLTE deployment.”

The M2M problem

One other difficult problem is going through operators is the widely-adopted machine-to-machine (M2M) legacy connections which are in existence, stated the technical govt. 

M2M units are embedded communication units that service sectors corresponding to truck fleet administration, good metering, bank card fee terminals, medical emergency or intruder alarm monitoring, to call a couple of. These units talk with different units, databases and servers, usually utilizing the older 3G cellular community.

“There are actually 1000’s of these sorts of units on the market and the apparent answer is to exchange them to assist 4G,” argued the technical govt. “The query is who’s going to bear the price of migration and is doing this by end-2021 holistically achievable?

“Additionally, coordinating such a large effort would take super human assets and pinpoint scheduling. Doing this by December 2021 is attempting, to say the least.”

In addition to M2M connections, different components that the GSMA stated could come into play embody contiguous 4G protection and smartphone penetration/ affordability.

The Affiliation added that whereas smartphone affordability is probably not a serious concern in high-income Asia Pacific markets corresponding to Singapore and Australia, it nonetheless does have an effect on some buyer segments.

“Many price range smartphones nonetheless supplied out there at present solely assist 3G or 4G information with out VoLTE,” it stated. “These are both bought for affordability causes or by subscribers in search of much less performance, corresponding to aged individuals.” 

Classes learnt from different markets

In the identical report, the GSMA stated choices to sundown older know-how corresponding to 3G are invariably pushed by operators, with differing levels of involvement by regulatory authorities and that shopper safety is usually the paramount concern of regulators.

The Affiliation famous {that a} clean migration course of is determined by cautious planning of a transitional interval, acquiring regulatory approval the place vital, and above all making certain efficient buyer engagement. 

Potential model injury may additionally occur if the operator leaves explicit segments of society with out protection, will increase prices to shoppers or disconnects giant numbers of M2M connections for enterprise prospects, it added.

Primarily based on the expertise of the case examine markets finest follow approaches embody a number of key traits, the GSMA recommends:

• A transitional interval of round three years, with preparations commencing sooner than formal public bulletins;
• Protection of any new know-how that matches what was beforehand supplied;
• An affordable formal discover interval, given particular market circumstances and potential obligations;
• A well-designed marketing campaign involving direct focusing on of affected prospects, presumably assisted by the regulator; 
• Improve incentives for purchasers, together with comparably priced plans, and handset recycling initiatives as a part of any 3G switch-off ; and 
• A top quality of service that’s maintained throughout and after the transition.

The GSMA additionally warned that if the transition shouldn’t be dealt with effectively, operators’ dangers embody buyer churn, significantly when operators don’t switch-off their networks on the similar tempo. There’s additionally the opportunity of decreased protection, significantly if the brand new know-how operates in a frequency band that doesn’t present sufficient indoor protection.

Confusion over such issues have precipitated even probably the most superior of community operators and its shoppers therein to be disgruntled, as was the case with AT&T when it did so.

Regardless of the case, the MCMC might want to work alongside all operators and people immediately concerned with the sunsetting of 3G networks.

“Profitable community switch-off initiatives usually contain a collaboration between operators and regulators to realize the optimum end result when it comes to modernising previous networks and making certain improved high quality of service for shoppers,” the GSMA concluded.