Building one tower at a time, EdgePoint Towers Sdn Bhd has grown its portfolio to over 1,500 towers across Malaysia, establishing themselves as the preferred infrastructure partner via a series of partnerships to successfully deploy innovative, future ready telecommunications infrastructure such as In-Building Coverage systems and Small Cells towards increasing capacity and improving an end user’s connectivity experiences.
In the past year, EdgePoint Towers expanded their presence in Sabah and look forward to enhancing connectivity in Sarawak.
EdgePoint Towers Sdn Bhd CEO Muniff Kamaruddin told BusinessToday exclusively the advanced landscape in Malaysia requires them to innovate and deploy more innovative, targeted technologies. “We’ve recently formed partnerships with several key businesses, such as myNEWS Holdings Berhad, Sunway Group and The Exchange TRX where we provided future ready solutions to meet capacity and connectivity needs.
Tactical alliances
Muniff explained the partnership with myNEWS Holdings Bhd involves deployment of technology neutral telecommunications infrastructure such as Small Cells to enhance capacity and coverage across myNEWS and CU outlets in the Peninsular, which will allow their customers to enjoy seamless connectivity when conducting payments using eWallets, debit cards, and other cashless payment methods.
With the Sunway Group and The Exchange TRX, they deployed state of the art in building systems to enable high speed mobile connectivity throughout their premises.
“We are also partnering to extend services to our traditional customers, the MNOs. Our latest partnership signed in April this year with REDtone focuses on providing high speed internet using Starlink’s low earth orbit satellites, to enable alternate backhaul solutions especially in East Malaysia.”
EdgePoint Towers has also extended their customer base to include some non-traditional segments, eg IOT players where we have collaborated to merge IoT with telecommunications infrastructure to monitor among others climate patterns, air quality, energy conservation.
“As an organisation, we are constantly upgrading our operations to ensure we are digitalised and able to meet our customers’ demands as efficiently as possible.
“By embracing data analytics, we can identify sites that need connectivity, making it easier for us to co-locate or recommend build to suits projects. The data also enables us to plan more efficiently and offer tailored products to our customers.
“Other forms of efficiencies we have adopted include a dedicated Network Operating Centre with remote monitoring systems that give us real-time visibility and data of our sites, allowing us to respond faster and more accurately, as well as digital locks on sites for added safety and security,” Muniff said.
EdgePoint Towers was recently awarded the Malaysia Digital (MD) status, which makes it one of the few digital infrastructure companies that has received this recognition which acknowledges our commitment to the digital ways of working.
EdgePoint Towers has forged partnerships with notable fibre operators like TM and TIME, and non-MNOs like myNews, Sunway Group, and The TRX Exchange to provide or upgrade telecommunications infrastructure, moving forward they will definitely continue to foster more partnerships with MNOs and non-MNO partners to expand and upgrade Malaysia’s telecommunications infrastructure, accelerate network deployment, enhance service quality, and drive digital innovation across various sectors.
“For example, we just announced our latest partnership with Celcom Timur Sabah to bring last mile fibre infrastructure to our sites located in Sabah. And, are in the process of working with more non-MNOs to host IOT and other solutions on our towers. Some new areas we are exploring include deploying satellite antennas supporting GPS services. We also recently worked with a customer to trial remote climate monitoring stations at our sites. The proof of concepts sites deployed in Penang have been encouraging and we hope to support our customer by expanding to other parts of the country,” he added.
EdgePoint Towers remains on the lookout for partners who share their vision to unlock the potential of telecommunications with innovative solutions that pave the way for a more connected experience.
Aligning its line of sight
Asked on the mission and vision to provide wider connectivity access across all Malaysian population segments, Muniff said they are amidst partnering with property developers, retail outlets and key players within the telco ecosystem gives us a wider platform for providing connectivity both in terms of deployment footprint as well as the technologies we can use.
“With satellite, In-Building Coverage (IBC) systems and small cell solutions, we can quickly address the capacity challenges in densely populated areas and coverage needs in under connected or underserved areas.”
Navigating challenges
Navigating regulatory and state specific requirements can sometimes be a challenge. This regulatory red tape impairs the company’s ability to install infrastructure speedily and directly impacts the communities that need connectivity, especially when we talk about deploying infrastructure quickly.
A way out is to have streamlined policies to ease access for national infrastructure deployment – an approach that can apply to USP and non-USP related projects will improve efficiency.
EdgePoint Towers has been working together with the government in reducing some of the regulatory red tape, and potentially reduce the burden of cost for the government in the same run. This has led to them publishing a whitepaper last year which discusses how seamless regulatory processes enables the telecommunications ecosystem to efficiently optimise operations and deliver connectivity at a quicker rate, which they hope can serve as a catalyst for the right kind of conversations in the ecosystem.
Towering Ahead
As demand for connectivity grows with the ongoing 5G rollout globally, towercos like EdgePoint can leverage on emerging technologies such as edge computing, private networks and fibreisation of tower sites to grow the business and unlock new revenue streams. Again, the aim is to explore new solutions with our customers and we will continue to develop these cutting-edge partnerships.
“Our core focus is to build a connected digital ASEAN, and we are committed to driving this by ensuring the right infrastructure is in place and the best services are delivered to our MNO customers,” Muniff said.
Advocating for digital equity in Malaysia is also a key focus for EdgePoint Towers, which we will continue to facilitate through thought leadership initiatives with the respective stakeholders and by driving public-private partnerships aimed at providing connectivity in not only remote areas but in under-served urban centres to bridge the digital gap.
