KUALA LUMPUR, July 10 — As revealed by Communications and Digital Minister Fahmi Fadzil, Malaysians can look forward to cheaper broadband services following the latest Mandatory Standard on Access Pricing (MSAP) which took effect on March 1, 2023. Fast forward four months later, we have yet to see any major price revision and it seems there’s a lack of enforcement from the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC).
To recap, the MSAP sets the wholesale pricing for various telecommunication services, including High-Speed Broadband (HSBB) access. The last revised MSAP was enforced in June 2018 a month after Gobind Singh Deo was appointed the communications and multimedia minister. The last MSAP only covered 2018, 2019 and 2020, and this means the wholesale broadband pricing has not been revised for more than two years.
As revealed by Fahmi, the price for wholesale HSBB under the new MSAP for 2023 marks a reduction of 50 per cent. For example, the 100Mbps wholesale rate for Layer 3 HSBB is reduced from RM515 to RM254.64 for 2023, to RM217.65 for 2024 and to RM186.21 for 2025. With the lower wholesale price, Fahmi said indirectly, services provided to consumers at the retail level can be offered at a lower and more competitive price or at a higher speed.
It has been four months since the MSAP took effect, so what’s the hold-up?
TM has yet to publish its new Reference Access Offer
Following the announcement by the MCMC, several telcos have already published their revised reference access offer (RAO) to comply with the new MSAP for 2023. Besides HSBB access on fibre, the RAO covers various services including trunk transmission, network co-location, MVNO access, infrastructure sharing, domestic roaming and more.
At the moment, we noticed that the RAO has been updated for CelcomDigi, Maxis, U Mobile, Time, Allo and YTL Communications. However, TM has yet to revise its wholesale pricing as the RAO page is still under construction. After reaching out to TM, they informed us discussions are still ongoing and the RAO will be updated in due course without giving a specific timeframe.
As we all know, TM is Malaysia’s largest fibre broadband network. Besides offering fibre under its Unifi brand, other telcos including CelcomDigi, Maxis and even Astro are dependent on TM’s HSBB network to offer fibre services to more customers nationwide. This also means that a major retail price reduction would only be possible after TM reduces its wholesale price for HSBB.
There are some movements following the release of the new MSAP. Both CelcomDigi and Astro have reduced their fibre broadband pricing but it is only for areas under CelcomTimur fibre network in Sabah. Maxis has also introduced a 1Gbps Business fibre broadband plan for only RM189/month but it is only available in areas within Maxis’ own-build fibre broadband infrastructure.
Broadband prices came down almost immediately after MSAP was implemented in 2018
The last major pricing shake-up for broadband took place in 2018 and consumers get to enjoy lower prices within a few months. The MSAP for 2018 was issued on 20th December 2017 and it was implemented in June 2018 after Gobind took office. The very next month, in July 2018, TM introduced its new Unifi Basic plan offering 30Mbps fibre for RM79/month (60GB quota) and they also announced a Turbo upgrade with 10x speed for existing Unifi customers. This was in line with Gobind’s promise to double the speed, at half the price.
In August, Maxis reduced its fibre broadband pricing with 30Mbps fibre plan going for only RM89/month, while Celcom also announced a price reduction in September with its 40Mbps fibre plan slashed from RM180/month to RM80/month. Time also reduced its fibre pricing in October and its 100Mbps fibre plan was slashed to just RM99/month. They also introduced its fastest 1Gbps home fibre plan at the time which costs RM199/month.
In order for prices to come down, the MCMC has to enforce and set a clear deadline for all telcos to comply with the new wholesale rates especially when the government is looking at various ways to reduce the cost of living. The Ministry of Communications and Digital needs to put its foot down and ensure that the MSAP is implemented without delay so that all consumers (not just Pakej Perpaduan targeted recipients) can benefit from the lower cost of fibre broadband. — SoyaCincau
