Malaysian regulator fires WiMAX warning shot

The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) is threatening the country's WiMAX licence holders with penalties if they fail to meet their 25 percent population coverage targets by the end of this year,

It is not yet clear what those penalties might be - fines or even revoking the licences - but the regulator is clearly keen to make sure there are no further delays in WiMAX rollout.

It was in March 2007 when MCMC awarded four WiMAX licences in the 2.3GHz frequency band: Packet one (P1), Y-Max and Asiaspace to serve peninsular Malaysia, and Redtone for East Malaysia.

The original deadline for commercial service launch was end 2007, but it wasn't until August 2008 that P1 and Redtone started commercial WiMAX service; Asiaspace followed shortly afterwards. Y-MAX has yet to offer a commercial WiMAX service.

P1 has already announced it will meet its 25 percent population coverage target for peninsular Malaysia by the end of 2008, and, to meet MCMC requirements, will extend population coverage to 35 percent and 46 percent of its licence area by 2009 and 2010 respectively.

Redtone CEO, Zainal Amanshah, told WiMAX Vision that he was on course to meet the 25 percent coverage deadline, although WiMAX Vision could not ascertain what the latest WiMAX rollout plans were for Asiaspace and Y-Max.

Zainal does, however, have a gripe of his own. "Redtone was given only a 25MHz spectrum block whereas the other players were given 30MHz," he says. "We have appealed to the MCMC to give us 30MHz for East Malaysia, which is critical for an efficient rollout."

Resource - WiMAX Vision