Celcom teams up with Huawei and Ericsson

CELCOM Axiata Bhd, one of the country's top mobile telecommunications providers, is beefing up its services and coverage and also upgrading its infrastructure and equipment by teaming up with Sweden's Ericsson and China's Huawei group.

Celcom Axiata chief executive officer Datuk Seri Shazalli Ramly said it is integrating and upgrading its 2G, 3G and 3.5G services to provide its 11 million customers with advanced and seamless network mobility that will be ready in three years.

"This initiative is part of Celcom's Key Performance Index, of which we will spend RM1 billion in capital expenditure in the next three years.

"Out of the RM1 billion, up to 70 per cent will be used to improve our data network," Shazalli told reporters in Kuala Lumpur yesterday after the signing ceremony yesterday.
Shazalli said the initiative is part of the company's plan to be a world-class mobile network provider employing the latest and future technologies, such as the High Speed Packet Access Plus and the Long Term Evolution technologies.

"This initiative is also to improve speed to 42 megabits-per-second from 14.4 megabits-per-second currently and also save maintenance costs on the number of our base stations by 50 per cent," he said. - By Zaidi Isham Ismail of btimes.com.my