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Telenor banks on Asia [New Straits Time (Malaysia)](New Straits Time (Malaysia) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) KUALA LUMPUR: NORWAY-based Telenor Group expects explosions in Internet penetration to take place in Asia within the short to medium term, with Malaysia contributing the highest projected penetration due to sound regulatory framework and competitive landscape. The group, which is also a parent company of DiGi Telecommunications Sdn Bhd with its 49 per cent stake, said Malaysian regulators have good understanding on how to regulate the industry and handle spectrum issues. "In Malaysia, Internet penetration has climbed steadily over the year on the back of a national target to grow broadband penetration to 75 per cent by 2015, which translates into good government and industry regulations," said Telenor Group executive vice-president and head of Asia operations, Sigve Brekke, who is also DiGi chairman. He said greater Internet penetration and higher mobile usage will drive Telenor's mobile Internet subscriber base in Asia by 64 per cent to 45 million users by yearend. Once achieved, almost one-third of the group's 160-million user base in Asia will be Internet-enabled. "There will be no linear growth the way we see in mobile voice usage but explosions of usage. "Thus, the group expects to increase its mobile Internet subscriber base in Asia by 64 per cent to 45 million users by year- end," Brekke said during KL Converge 2014 yesterday. He said Asian telecommunication companies (telcos) have also been competitive when it comes to innovation and pricing, which means better services for the consumer. Brekke said Malaysia and Thailand collectively have the highest usage of mobile Internet with an average browsing of four hours a day. Meanwhile, DiGi chief executive officer Lars Norling said the telco is in talks with Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission to attain a bigger allocation of lower-end spectrum frequency bands for rural usage. "Right now, we have spectrums of the higher-end of 2.1MHz, 2.3MHz and 2.6MHz, which are mainly used in the city, but it is not feasible to deliver this spectrum to the rural areas as we do not have the infrastructure to connect it," he said. "For the rural areas, we need lower-end spectrums in the region of 700MHz, 850MHz and 900MHz as these could be distributed without infrastructure, of which we do not have." He said the discussions to obtain the lower-end spectrums are still ongoing, noting the only way Malaysia can go fully digitised as per the government's objective is through wireless Internet of the lower end as fixed infrastructures are just too expensive. (c) 2014 ProQuest Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved. |