5G Task Force’s mid-term report is out
The 5G Task Force’s mid-term report today, sees a few important things happening.
First, it addressed the health and safety aspects of 5G and Multimedia and Communications Minister, Mr. Gobind Singh himself said in his keynote, “I would like to assure the Malaysian public that the Government will not compromise in this aspect and the new 5G technology will only be deployed after it is certified to have complied with the all the necessary safety standards.”
In other words, the MCMC (Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission has issued a Mandatory Standard on Electromagnetic Field (EMF) emissions from Radio Communications Infrastructure. It is now enforced and all industry players are required to conduct and report field measurements to ensure compliance.
Secondly, the development of a list of use cases has culminated in 5G demonstrations expanding from the original testbeds in Putrajaya and Cyberjaya, to 5 other locations, namely Selangor, Perak, Terengganu, Federal Territory and Kedah. A total of RM50 million is being invested for 66 identified 5G use cases.
The next phase
Thirdly, the current 5G Task Force will evolve into a 5G Implementation Task Force after the final report is completed.
Currently, the multi-stakeholder Task Force comprises of service providers, business associations, communications equipment vendors, academia, ministries, agencies and MCMC. It is divided into working groups for Infrastructure, Spectrum, Regulatory and Business Case. There are 113 participating organisations in the Task Force.
Mr. Gobind also drew attention to a public inquiry that is ongoing since 1st July till 30th August, 2019, to seek input on optimum bandwidth, award mechanism, timeline for allocation process and broad principles to determine spectrum fees for the 700MHz, 2300MHz and 2600MHz spectrum band.
Also, something called a spectrum roadmap will be developed by first quarter of 2020.
The minister took the opportunity to urge industry players to avoid duplication and conserve scarce resources by sharing network infrastructure.
