Malaysia’s Maxis Mobile, the wholly owned mobile subsidiary of Maxis Communications, is conducting trials of Long Term Evolution (LTE) services at the same time as its fixed line sister company is conducting an IPTV pilot in the Klang Valley, the Star Online reports. Maxis Communications has said that the trials form part of its growth strategy for the future, with Maxis CEO Sandip Das stating: ‘Maxis has always made sure that we trial new technology ahead of time. We were first to launch 3G and have done testing … for DVB-H, HSDPA and even WiMAX’. While any future commercial deployment of LTE technology will depend on spectrum allocations, Maxis said that the decision to test it was motivated by the need to ensure that it is prepared to cater for increased demand in mobile broadband services. No details were provided of how many people are involved with the trial, but Das did confirm that ‘no decision has been made at this point in time on the LTE vendor’.
In terms of the IPTV trial it is understood that Maxis has around 50 people testing the service.