{"id":4049,"date":"2020-06-03T16:53:29","date_gmt":"2020-06-03T08:53:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/?p=4049"},"modified":"2020-06-03T16:53:29","modified_gmt":"2020-06-03T08:53:29","slug":"5g-spectrum-award-to-telcos-defers-capital-expenditure-risk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/?p=4049","title":{"rendered":"5G spectrum award to telcos defers capital expenditure risk"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

KUALA LUMPUR, June 3 – Maybank Investment Bank expects\u00a0that the Communications and Multimedia\u00a0Ministry\u2019s (MCMC) move to award Fifth Generation (5G) mobile network\u2019s 700 megahertz (MHz) band to five telecommunication (telco) companies\u00a0would\u00a0defer 5G capital expenditure (capex) risk.<\/p>\n

The investment bank said\u00a0while details are lacking, it appeared that there had\u00a0been a deviation from some of the original regulatory plans.<\/p>\n

\u201c5G capex risk appears to have been deferred for now, although the impact to share prices is still unclear pending further disclosures, given that\u00a0the tenure, mode of assignment and use case for the 700MHz were not specified,\u201d it said in a research note today.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

It said as the major players\u00a0got a slice of the 700MHz band, the risk of missing out has dissipated for now, but the financial impact on these companies\u00a0could only be ascertained on the\u00a0eventual disclosure of the spectrum fees.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n

In a separate note,\u00a0Public Investment Bank said generally, the commercial rollout of 5G networks would take several years, given the need to improve current networks\u2019 connectivity as well as uncertainties\u00a0over the adoption rate by consumers and businesses.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, the MCMC issued a\u00a0report mentioning that the 700MHz and 3.5GHz bands would\u00a0not be allocated to individual licensees.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Instead, it would\u00a0be assigned to a consortium in order to lower investment cost and to avoid duplications of network infrastructure.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u201cAt this juncture, it remains to be seen whether the previous consortium approach to help minimise cost and reduce duplications of infrastructure is still applicable, as the pricing for this 700MHz spectrum was not disclosed,\u201d Public Investment Bank said.<\/p>\n

Moving forward, it said one\u00a0of the biggest challenges in 5G deployment is investment costs,\u00a0with infrastructure —\u00a0including spectrum and small cell towers —\u00a0accounting\u00a0for a big chunk of the cost.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

The challenges also include\u00a0the adoption rate, given that 5G connectivity is only expected to apply to a small minority of industry players.<\/p>\n

The investment bank said it also\u00a0remained\u00a0doubtful on the demand for 5G, as the country would first need\u00a0to develop an ecosystem that involved\u00a0advanced industries like artificial intelligence, driverless cars and Internet of Things.<\/p>\n

Public Investment Bank\u00a0has maintained a \u201cneutral\u201d call on the sector.<\/p>\n

In a ministerial order on May 15, the ministry said\u00a0Celcom Axiata Bhd, Digi Telecommunications Sdn Bhd and Maxis Broadband Sdn Bhd would be allocated 2x10MHz each,\u00a0while Telekom Malaysian Bhd and Altel Communications Sdn Bhd would receive 2x5MHz each.<\/p>\n

In a separate determination,\u00a0the 2600MHz band would be reallocated via spectrum assignments to existing holders for 15 years (current tenures expire in Dec 2021), but spectrum fees were not mentioned.<\/p>\n

– BERNAMA<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KUALA LUMPUR, June 3 – Maybank Investment Bank expects\u00a0that the Communications and Multimedia\u00a0Ministry\u2019s (MCMC) move…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4051,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[10308,10311,10309,8996,10310,10312],"class_list":["post-4049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-5g","tag-altel","tag-celcom-axiata","tag-digi","tag-maxis","tag-telekom"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/maybank.jpg",1110,694,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/maybank-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/maybank-300x188.jpg",300,188,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/maybank-768x480.jpg",640,400,true],"large":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/maybank-1024x640.jpg",640,400,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/maybank.jpg",1110,694,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/maybank.jpg",1110,694,false],"newsium-slider-full":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/maybank.jpg",1110,694,false],"newsium-featured":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/maybank.jpg",1024,640,false],"newsium-medium":["https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/maybank.jpg",720,450,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Editor"]},"category_info":"Business<\/a>","tag_info":"Business","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4049","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4049"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4052,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4049\/revisions\/4052"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newmalaysiatimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}