TM partners with Cisco to provide private 5G network to enterprises in Malaysia

TM partners with Cisco to provide private 5G network to enterprises in Malaysia.Source: Telekom Malaysia

Cisco to provide private 5G network to enterprises in Malaysia with TM

  • Cisco and TM will be building a 5G-as-a-service center of excellence to springboard 5G adoption and develop proof of concepts for enterprises and vertical industries in Malaysia.
  • The sandbox will be supported by Cisco’s full stack of Private 5G Core technologies complete with services and support.
  • Cisco said the innovation platform will allow businesses In Malaysia to visualize and implement 5G frameworks and solutions that address unique business challenges.

Network experts have always advocated having private 5G networks for enterprises, to ensure better security and control. While countries like the US and Europe have a certain spectrum of the network that has been or is in the process of being allocated to enterprises to deploy private 5G, that has not been the case in Malaysia. Malaysia’s national connectivity and digital infrastructure provider, Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM) announced that it will be collaborating with Cisco International Limited to build a private 5G network sandbox for enterprises and vertical industries.

Both TM and Cisco signed a new strategic partnership yesterday, as part of the latter’s Country Digital Acceleration (CDA) program to supercharge Malaysia’s digital ambitions. Both parties basically signed two collaboration agreements to pave the way for key projects focused on helping the country develop its 5G innovation platform as well as accelerate technology adoption and transformation for Malaysia’s small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

Overall, TM’s partnership with Cisco focuses on three key pillars: digital transformation in the public sector, specifically education – which according to TM, will be launched at a later date; digital transformation for service providers, focusing on 5G innovation, and digital transformation for SMEs. “Cisco and TM will build a 5G-as-a-service center of excellence to springboard 5G adoption and develop proof of concepts for enterprises and vertical industries,” the statement reads.

According to Cisco, the private 5G network will be supported by its full stack of Private 5G Core technologies complete with services and support. Based on the joint-statement between TM and Cisco, the innovation platform will demonstrate 5G enterprise use cases realized on the reference architecture to allow businesses to visualize and implement 5G frameworks and solutions that address unique business challenges.

TM’s group CEO Imri Mokhtar shared that the national infrastructure provider is honored to be the first company to partner with Cisco in bringing the CDA program to Malaysia, which has the potential to benefit enterprises, consumers and over 400,000 SMEs. “This collaboration builds on TM and Cisco’s 17-year partnership and will be the first of many “Innovation Sandbox” collaborations TM will drive, in our efforts to realize the Digital Malaysia aspiration and 5G objectives for the nation,” he said in his keynote address during the signing ceremony yesterday.

Cisco’s CDA program is a strategic partnership with governments worldwide and it taps on the power of private and public partnerships across a variety of sectors, including national infrastructure, education, and smart businesses and communities, to bring digital solutions to national challenges. “Digitalization initiatives that are rolled out are made into replicable solutions to cross-pollinate and contribute to Cisco’s wider CDA ecosystem which is currently present across 44 countries globally,”  Cisco Asia Pacific, Japan, and Greater China’s president Dave West.

What would a private 5G network mean for Malaysia?

According to Cisco, private 5G networks are nonpublic mobile networks that can use licensed, unlicensed, or shared spectrum. The networks are meant to augment existing capabilities and introduce new possibilities that other systems are not able to support. The biggest selling point for private 5G is that it is a key enabler for smart factories and Industrial Revolution 4.0. 

According to a blog posting by TM ONE’s GM for enterprise mobile Nor Hisham Md Nordin, the concept of a private mobile network is not new; it began with 4G/LTE. However, he noted that the previous generation of cellular technology couldn’t support the speed, latency and reliability needed in today’s fourth industrial revolution. “Mainly because technology gradually becomes mainstream, after which enterprises struggle with increasing workloads from applications and the proliferation of users and connected devices,” he said.

Furthermore, increased video content, low-latency and reliability requirements, as well as thousands of intelligent Internet of Things (IoT) devices, have placed unforeseen demands on corporate connectivity, Nor Hisham said. In essence, private 5G has also played a paramount role in enabling a local tech revolution especially with the unmanned operations field. “Robotics and drones could be used to inspect hard-to-reach areas with remote monitoring that is enabled by robust connectivity infrastructure, even in harsh conditions,” he added.

With the heavy industry now benefiting from private 5G in Malaysia, Nor Hisham said TM ONE foresees that oil & gas, manufacturing, transportation and ports industries would follow soon.