Malaysia may force the country's three mobile players to step up domestic roaming and improve their services, a government minister said on April 14.
Under domestic roaming, when a network's cellular coverage is not available, the subscriber is diverted to the network of a rival telco that can provide the coverage.
Energy and Telecom munications Minister Lim Keng Yaik also defended the government's decision to deny DiGi.Com a 3G licence and said the move was intended to break a monopoly of content among the three mobile phone operators.
DiGi, 61 percent owned by Norway's Telenor, is Malaysia's only mobile phone firm without a 3G licence. Both its larger local rivals, Maxis Communications Bhd and Telekom Malaysia, own 3G licences. "They (the three firms) have become very monopolistic," Lim told reporters. "Time has come in order to develop the industry, we have to regulate and open up the industry and stop the monopoly that causes bottlenecks. It's time for action."
Lim said he saw resistance from the firms in getting them to voluntarily launch domestic roaming service across the country.
"I see the resistance is there," he said. Asked if the government would introduce laws making it mandatory for them to do so, he said: "If it has to be, it has to be."
"Unfortunately, I'm not a very popular man with the existing players."
Malaysia has almost 17 million mobile phone subscribers, around 65 percent of the population, making it Southeast Asia's third most developed mobile market after Singapore and Brunei.
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