KUALA LUMPUR, March 6 — Celcom Axiata Bhd (Celcom) has bagged the Ookla Speedtest Award for Best Mobile Coverage in Malaysia.
In a statement, Celcom said based on Ookla’s Speedtest report for Q3-Q4 2021 in Malaysia, Celcom’s mobile coverage and Malaysians’ mobile experience was analysed through Ookla’s Coverage Metrics.
Ookla’s Speedtest report noted that its Coverage Score captured telcos’ footprint and quality of service in the country during the period to determine the award winners.
“The analysis showed that Celcom garnered an average score of 787 in Malaysia, topping the Best Mobile Coverage category. Celcom recorded the highest scan count of more than 142 million scans and covered 356,606 locations from the total locations observed nationwide.
“Based on the report, Celcom also achieved and led with a winning score of 93.2 per cent for 4G coverage and 99.7 per cent for general coverage nationwide,” it said.
According to the mobile network operator, the award is also a recognition of the impact from Celcom’s capex of RM825 million for network improvements in 2021, which resulted in an additional 900 long term evolution (LTE) sites and over 9,500 sites optimised with improved 4G coverage and capacity across the nation.
The statement said Celcom’s 4G network investments also achieved an estimated 99 per cent 4G LTE pop coverage or higher in seven states, while also increasing 4G LTE pop coverage, especially in Sabah, Pahang, Terengganu, Kelantan, Sarawak, Negeri Sembilan, and Kedah.
By the end of 2021, Celcom had achieved 94.5 per cent LTE population coverage nationwide, which is measured through a signal strength of -98dBm in urban and sub-urban areas to provide an average 3-4 bars outdoor signal on the mobile device.
Celcom’s latest network achievement was announced during the recent Ookla Speedtest Awards ceremony at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2022 in Barcelona, Spain, from Feb 28 to March 3, 2022.
Commenting on the Ookla award recognition, Celcom Axiata Bhd chief executive officer Datuk Idham Nawawi said Celcom will continue to invest in modernising its network and address the rapid data traffic growth and demand with accelerated network investments.
“The investments include deploying the latest end-to-end network technology such as the world’s first large-scale commercial FDD Smart 8T8R, 4T4R multiple-input and multiple-output (MIMO), Carrier Aggregation, 256 Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (QAM) and many more, improving digital experiences,” he said.
Ookla is the global leader in mobile and broadband network intelligence, testing applications and related technologies.
Speedtest, Ookla’s flagship network testing platform, collects hundreds of millions of measurements about the performance and quality of networks around the world each day.
Operators, businesses, and government agencies alike rely on Ookla for unparalleled and immediate information on the state of networks and online services. — Bernama
