KUALA LUMPUR (WiMAX Day). At last week’s ACM 2007 Expo and ASEAN WiMAX conference in Kuala Lumpur, the Energy, Water and Communications Minister Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik announced that the four recent WiMAX licensees, Asiaspace Dotcom Sdn Bhd, REDtone-CNX Broadband Sdn Bhd, Bizsurf (M) Sdn Bhd (a unit of YTL Corp) and Packet One Networks Sdn Bhd (formerly known as MIB Communications) should be deploying their services as early as within the first quarter of 2008.

All four companies involved may run the risk of losing their government license if this timetable is not met, as services were supposed to be ready by the end of December.  The license spectrums were awarded for a period of three years. “If everyone is cooperative with the shared infrastructure, they have no reason to face difficulties in rolling out their services,” said Yaik, who also witnessed the signing of the memorandum of understanding (MoU) and technology licensing agreement for joint development of a suite of Broadband Powerline products between Telekom Malaysia unit, TM Research & Development Sdn Bhd, and Velchip Sdn Bhd.