Huawei and Maju Nusa deploy mobile network sharing system in rural Malaysia
By Digital News Asia September 18, 2014
- Part of national project under the TIME 3 Universal Service Provision programme
- Aims to bridge the digital divide between urban and rural locations in Malaysia
SHENZEN, China-based telecoms giant Huawei said it has successfully deployed a Multi-Operator Radio Access Network (Moran) mobile network sharing system through its partner Maju Nusa at over 127 sites spread across Malaysia.
This was part of a national project under the TIME 3 Universal Service Provision programme initiated by industry regulator the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC), Huawei said in a statement.
The TIME 3 USP project is part of the National Broadband Initiative introduced by the Malaysian Government and MCMC. It is a cellular coverage expansion initiative to increase the geographical coverage of cellular services nationwide.
The project involves rolling out infrastructure such as towers in extreme rural areas with low population density, or commercially uneconomic areas. These include plantations, Orang Asli (indigenous peoples) settlements, new tourist locations, and significant highways, Huawei said.
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The deployment aims to bridge the digital divide between urban and rural locations in Malaysia, providing broadband service to disadvantaged groups, as well as to increase the broadband access rate by providing broadband service to areas with low public switched telephone network penetration, high density areas, or places where current public services are not sufficient.
The deployment also gives end-users more options when choosing their preferred network, irrespective of their location, Huawei claimed.
In 2013, MCMC awarded the deployment at over 40% of the site under the TIME 3 USP project to Maju Nusa, which selected the Huawei Moran wireless solution to deliver 2G and 3G (Second and Third Generation) cellular services to the targeted USP areas.
Maju Nusa also utilised a VSAT (very small aperture terminal) system as the transmission backhaul solution for all these sites, as they are located in very distant and remote rural fields in Malaysia.
Huawei claimed that the Moran network is the first of its own kind in the world to provide a complete series of Radio Access Network (RAN) sharing equipment for multiple operators.
It enables each cellular operator to separately configure cell-specific service management and thus offers cellular services to end-users via the shared RAN, based on its owned licensed spectrum frequency.
Maju Nusa has delivered more than 95% of the total sites which carry live voice traffic for the three major mobile operators in Malaysia: Maxis, Celcom and DiGi.
All these sites have been successfully integrated into the major commercial cellular networks in Malaysia, Huawei claimed.
“We are proud to be part of TIME 3 project and are thankful to MCMC for showing trust in our capabilities,” said Maju Nusa executive director Desmond Looh (pic).
“The project was a challenging one, and we are glad to have delivered on the ultimate objective of the project, which was that remote households are able to make calls and use other cellular services without changing their phone connections.
“New users are now free to choose from an increased number of cellular operators as three mobile operators deliver services at each site. Huawei has contributed significantly towards the project deployment and we are happy to work with them,” he added.
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