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Mobif Wireless Broadband is confident iBurst is capable of taking on WiMAX.
THIS year may well turn out to be one of the most eventful for the Malaysian wireless broadband landscape.
Barely a month after the government issued licences for the 2.3GHz WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) spectrum, the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) gave the go ahead for yet another wireless broadband provider, Mobif Wireless Broadband Sdn Bhd (MWB), to use the 1.79GHz to roll out its iBurst service locally.
The company also announced that it had received the Network Service Provider (NSP) and the Network Facilities Provider (NFP) licences from MCMC last month.
The rationale for releasing the spectrum to MWB was done to spur greater competition in the market, according to Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik, the Minister of Energy, Water and Communications.
`I'm still not satisfied with the broadband rollout in the country. As such, I'm trying to speed up the development of broadband access by introducing competition through wireless players in the market,' he says.
According to MCMC, the number of broadband subscribers in the country stands at about 3.3% of the population or about 900,000 subscribers as of last year. This is a far cry from the 75% penetration target rate to be achieved by 2010, which was outlined in the National Broadband Plan.
Lim also questioned why he needed to heed to calls by certain quarters to `unbundle the local loop' when such an action would not guarantee that broadband speeds would be acceptable to consumers in the country.
`This is why we need to have broadband services rolled out based on multiple access technologies and not just based on one...