KUALA LUMPUR (WiMAX Day). Maxis and Telekom Malaysia ™ are the next GSM and fixed-line telecom operators to join the swelling ranks of WiMAX operators. Until now, neither company had committed to launch wireless broadband services in Malaysia, despite having licenses for 2.5 GHz spectrum.

Following the recent auction of 2.3 GHz spectrum in Malaysia, where spectrum was awarded to serveral operators such as YTL e-Solutions intent on launching WiMAX, both Maxis and TM now seem to understand the market potential and have both announced plans to launch WiMAX.

Maxis CEO Jamaludin Ibrahim said the company would start WiMAX services before the end of the year, according to a report by Bloomberg News Service. He noted that “the mobile market is saturated in Malaysia and broadband offers a significant growth opportunity with household penetration only standing at 14 percent.”

In January of this year, Maxis began testing WiMAX with Motorola at four sites in Kuala Lumpur. At the time, Dr Nikolai Dobberstein, senior general manager for Products & New Businesses, said “Mobile WiMAX plays a critical role in our wireless broadband strategy.”

The auction of 2.3 GHz spectrum last month excluded both Maxis and TM from the bidding process in an effort to increase competition in the telecommunications market. The Minister for Energy, Water and Communications, Datuk Seri Dr. Lim Keng Yaik, told reporters before the auction “now you know why we distribute the WiMAX licences to the small companies… the big fellows, including the Telekom Malaysia, already have the 2.5 GHz.”

At a conference last month in Kuala Lumpur, Dr. Lim Keng Yaik confirmed that “there is no problem for them [Maxis and TM] to roll out the WiMAX using the existing 2.5 GHz. Just go and talk with the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) to get enough bandwidth for rolling out the WiMAX via 2.5 GHz.” Both companies are now working with the MCMC to increase the bandwidth of their spectrum.

The group CEO of Telekom Malaysia, Datuk Abdul Wahid Omar, told reporters recently that the capital required for deploying a WiMAX network has been approved in the company’s budget. “The Ministry has already come up with a statement that they expect the WiMAX operators to spend between RM250 million and RM300 million to deploy the network and we are prepared to invest that kind of money,” Wahid said.

For Telekom Malaysia, a WiMAX network will add significantly to their portfolio of products and services, which include fixed-line and Internet, as well as the mobile network Celcom. Wahid further noted that for TM “the promise of WiMAX is twofold, one is about the network, which is cheap compared to the rest because the reach is very far and you need fewer base stations to cover a larger area. The other area is the commitment made by Intel, who has stated that every notebook from end-2008 would be pre-loaded with a WiMAX chip.”