Malaysian fixed line incumbent Telekom Malaysia has reportedly called on the government to delay and revise the implementation of the Mandatory Standard on Access Pricing (MSAP) – a measure which will force the telco to dramatically reduce its fixed broadband prices. According to The Malaysian Reserve which cites people with knowledge of the matter, an official appeal has been made to the Prime Minister’s Office and the Ministry of Finance (MoF) to revoke the MSAP implementation, with one unnamed source cited as saying: ‘Telekom Malaysia has appealed, saying if they implement the MSAP, it will hurt their earnings.’
As previously reported by CommsUpdate, in June this year the communications minister Gobind Singh Deo said that broadband users could expect prices to fall by 25% by the end of this year, following the decision by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) to implement the MSAP. TeleGeography notes that the MSAP places a cap on the wholesale prices that can be charged by service providers, and while it had originally been slated for enforcement on 1 January 2018, it was delayed after an earlier appeal by Telekom Malaysia which sought to revise some of the pricing components. MCMC had set 31 July as the extended deadline to complete all access agreements based on the new MSAP prices, with these agreements needing to be compliant with both the MCMC’s Mandatory Standards on Access (MSA) and MSAP. It is understood, however, that operators have yet to receive any access agreement from Telekom Malaysia that is compliant, with the local news outlets sources saying: ‘As a result of this delay and thinking that Telekom Malaysia needs more time to draft new agreements, the deadline has been extended until the end of August … At this crucial juncture, Telekom Malaysia has written to the government to halt the MSAP implementation.’