YTL Comms confident of WiMAX leadership

By Goh Thean Eu                                                                                                     Published: 2011/07/11


KUALA LUMPUR: YTL Communications Sdn Bhd (YTL Comms), a unit of YTL Power Bhd, believes it is only a matter of time before it becomes the clear leader among its WiMAX peers.

Within six months of operations, YTL Comms has signed up more than 200,000 subscribers, a number which took the market leader Packet One Networks (M) Sdn Bhd (or also known as P1) about two years to achieve.

"By end of this year, we see our subscriber base easily doubled from the 200,000 that we have now," said YTL Comms chief executive officer Wing Lee in an interview with Business Times recently.

Despite being the fastest growing WiMAX company in the country, Lee is not satisfied, as he believes the company can perform even better if consumers understand its products.

"I truly believe we need to do a better job in creating the awareness. What we are trying to educate our customers is on the concept of total cost of ownership. It is very important.

"Right now, you have one sim card for a mobile phone, one for broadband dongle, and one for a broadband and voice package for home, you got three to four bills a month, and each bill is RM80-150.

"So, if you look at it at this perspective, the total cost of ownership, you can clearly see that customers can save more by signing up with us, because by going with us, customers are actually getting all these services at-one-go," he explained.

To become a clear leader in this space, it needs to continue with its aggressive marketing campaign as well as ensure that qua-lity of its network remains top-notch. It will also bank on its wide network coverage to woo more customers.

"If you look at our network footprint, we launched with 1200 base station covering 65 per cent of the country's population, and six months later we launched coverage for the entire North South Expressway. This makes us the only company ever in Malaysia's history that has 4G that covers the entire highway.

"This means, we have larger footprint than any of the other WiMAX guys. In my assessment, when we go to places that the other guys cannot go, we should own the market," said Lee.

The company, which has invested more than RM3 billion to cover 65 per cent of the population, currently has about 1,700 base stations, and aims to have some 2,500 base stations by end of this year.

In contrast, its rival P1 aims to have about 1,600 base stations by end of the year.

Although becoming the market leader in the WiMAX space is within reach, Lee believes, with the company's capability and innovation, it can achieve more and give the incumbent mobile operators, who are offering both voice and wireless broadband services, a run for their money.

"We invest a lot of money in this brand new network, because we understand that mobile Internet is the mega-carrier, the mega-wave of new innovations. Our conclusion is voice is one of the things we should do, but there are many other things we will do in the coming months," he said.