Malaysian wireless operator Celcom Axiata is said to have successfully demonstrated the roaming capabilities of its LTE service in Singapore, according to Bernama. With the demonstration understood to have been carried out at CommunicAsia 2013, in a statement the cellco was cited as saying: ‘The success of the demonstration positions Celcom as the first service provider to have roaming capabilities for 4G LTE between Malaysia and Singapore through M1, its mobile partner network in Singapore.’
As noted in TeleGeography’s GlobalComms Database, Celcom launched commercial LTE services in the Klang Valley in April 2013, with the operator initially having switched on around 70 4G sites in the region. The initial rollout focus, Celcom noted, would be the Klang Valley, Johor and Penang, although a number of other areas have been earmarked for coverage, including: Malacca, Kota Baru, Ipoh, Alor Star, Langkawi, Kuantan, Kota Kinabalu, Kuala Terengganu and Kuching. Looking ahead, the cellco has said it aims to have switched on around 300 LTE-enabled sites by the end of 2015, while nationwide coverage, via around 1,500 sites, is expected by end-2015. Following this recent roaming demonstration Celcom has now said that it is on track to achieve 10% population coverage by the end of 3Q 2013, while this figure is set to rise to 30% by February 2014.