The revelation was made during the launch of Axiata Cyber Fusion Centre which is located at the telco’s corporate headquarters in Petaling Jaya. At the same launch event, Communications and Multimedia Minister Annuar Musa also noted that the negotiations for the Digital Nasional Berhad stakes with the local telcos are going on well in on track to meet the deadline on 31 August. CEO of Celcom, Mohamad Idham Nawawi (standing, centre) with Communications and Multimedia Minister Annuar Musa at the Axiata Cyber Fusion Centre. [Image: Annuar Musa / Facebook.]The remark from the CEO generally echoed what the telco’s Chief Operations Officer (Technology), Afizulazha Abdullah said earlier during a recent media briefing for the Celcom Business Tech Week showcase. At that time, he said that the telco is ready for the next-generation cellular technology in terms of network perspective as the telco has been testing 5G for quite some time and is now finalizing the commercial details. Once that is done, Celcom will then deploy the technology to the masses. As we have seen Celcom’s 5G solutions in action for so many years, the remark made by Idham and Afizulazha did not come as a surprise to us at all. In fact, the telco together with Ericsson performed one of the first public 5G demonstrations in Malaysia way back in 2017 with a throughput of 18Gbps. Fast forward to April 2019, Celcom participated in the Malaysia 5G Showcase at Putrajaya with a number of projects including virtual reality and workspace alongside connected drones and autonomous cars. The telco then turned on the 5G network for its own Petaling Jaya HQ three months later through cooperation with Huawei. Later in the year, Celcom also joined the massive Langkawi Trials by helping Royal Malaysia Police and Langkawi Municipal Council to deploy a 5G-based high-definition live surveillance system in selected areas across the island. The telco has also assisted Langkawi Port Authority to implement a 5G digital boundary control system in early 2020. Both of these projects are still running today which once again indicates the level of readiness that Celcom has when it comes to 5G technology. So, what really is left now is for the telco to finally complete its commercial agreement with DNB and get their 5G ball rolling for real.
