The Malaysian government intends to develop a 5G network plan, National Digital Bhd (DNB) recently announced the results of the tender, Sweden’s Ericsson (Ericsson) as a partner, while China’s Huawei and seven other companies were selected. Huawei has been operating 5G deep in Malaysia for many years, and as a 5G supplier. The future of Huawei’s market position in Malaysia is uncertain.
According to today’s Malaysian report, Malaysia’s 11 billion 5G network bid opening, Ericsson beat Huawei.
Malaysia National Digital Sdn Bhd is a special project company set up by the Ministry of Finance. The Malaysian News Agency reported that National Digital Bhd issued a statement yesterday that the government awarded an RM11 billion contract to Ericsson to build, hold and operate the 5G network infrastructure.
According to an earlier report in the Free Times, although Malaysia has not shown an aversion to China’s Huawei 5G network equipment, Huawei has been confirmed out of the latest 5G network equipment tender, with Swedish firm Ericsson winning the RM11 billion bid for the construction of the 5G network.
The newspaper quoted Nikkei News as saying that back in October 2019, China’s Huawei was introduced as the 5G hardware supplier for Maxis, Malaysia’s largest subscriber mobile provider. Under the agreement between the two parties, Huawei will provide 5G radio equipment, services and expertise for Maxis’ network. The agreement is based on the premise that 5G spectrum allocations will be granted to individual telcos and that the choice of hardware supplier will depend on the respective spectrum holder.
In response, Malaysia’s Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin established Digital Nasional through the Ministry of Finance to take control of 5G assets and spectrum, thus moving away from the traditional allocation method. As a result, Digital Nasional invited eight 5G equipment vendors to bid, including Ericsson, Huawei, ZTE, Cisco, NEC, Nokia, Samsung and Fiberhome.
According to Digital Nasional’s latest statement, Ericsson has been awarded the design and development of Malaysia’s 5G network, a 5G construction plan worth about RM11 billion, more than 60 percent of which will benefit local contractors over the next 10 years, the report said.
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