MCMC updates spectrum award, allocation guidelines

The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has released new guidelines regarding the allocation of spectrum, the Malaysia Star reports. The regulator’s Spectrum Plan 2011 determines how frequencies will be awarded, superceding an earlier 2006 plan, and under the MCMC’s guidelines it has said that spectrum can be awarded in three ways – auction, tender and via fixed pricing – while the allocation itself may be via spectrum assignment, apparatus assignment and class assignment. The new regulation will be used in the awarding of 700MHz and 2.6GHz spectrum, with the MCMC currently in the final stages of evaluating the award for the latter. As previously reported by CommsUpdate at the end of June 2011, a decision on which operators will be awarded licences to offer commercial Long Term Evolution (LTE) services in Malaysia remains under discussion by the MCMC. The regulator, having issued temporary concessions in the 2.6GHz band to nine companies in October 2010, is still reportedly examining the matter, with deputy minister of information, communications and culture Joseph Salang Gandum cited in June 2011 as claiming that, with the 4G technology still not yet mature, there remained ‘no real rush to distribute the spectrum.’