Guided by national Twitter campaign, Digi completes East Malaysia 4G LTE rollout

 April 11, 2016

 
Photo -  (From left) Digi's Chief Network Officer Kesavan Sivabalan and Benny Wee, Digi's Head of Region for Sarawak flagging off the Digi roving team that will be in Bau on Saturday to promote the telco's now available 4G LTE coverage in the town. Bau and Limbang were the two towns in Sarawak that made the top 10 list in the #DigiWeWant4G Twitter campaign.

Digi Telecommunications (Digi) has added Bau and Limbang in the East Malaysian state of Sarawak to the list of towns with 4G LTE coverage guided by social media voting by the telco's customers.

Speaking of its one-month 'You Tweet, We Build' campaign, which ended in December 2015, Digi's chief network officer, Kesavan Sivabalan, said, "Bau and Limbang in Sarawak now join the list of towns in Digi's rollout of 4G LTE after coming in the top 10 of our #DigiWeWant4G Twitter campaign."

"To date, we have deployed and switched on our 4G LTE infrastructure to serve customers in Setia Alam in the Klang Valley, the northern peninsular towns of Lunas, Batu Gajah, Jejawi and Arau as well as Papar and Tenom in Sabah," said Sivabalan. "We're pleased to be unveiling the people's tower and powering up 4G LTE here in Bau and Limbang. We are looking to complete the tenth and final town, Simpang Renggam in Johor, in the coming weeks."

"The campaign was a great way for us to listen to our customers and is crucial to us as it helps us understand their needs and roll out our network strategically and efficiently while strengthening our coverage position," he said. "In Sarawak, we have increased our 4G LTE coverage to 58.5 percent of populated areas which covers 19 cities and major towns. In Kuching, our 4G LTE coverage currently stands at 88.14 percent of the population," he added.

"The people of Bau and Limbang see the value of good 4G LTE coverage and we look forward to bringing them a consistent high-speed digital lifestyle experience on-the-go where they can enjoy high-quality video and music streaming, faster internet browsing as well as social media sharing and more," added Sivabalan.

Digi claims to operate Malaysia's widest 4G LTE network with 72 percent population coverage now. A statement said Digi's network offered 4G LTE access to 153 major cities and towns, with key market centres averaging 95 percent population coverage. Digi has also switched on its 4G LTE-Advanced (4G LTE-A) network nationwide with a 31 percent coverage footprint. Kuching itself has an LTE-A population coverage of 42.12 percent.

In addition to rolling out its 4G LTE and LTE-A network, Digi is already working to bring Voice-over-LTE (VoLTE) and Voice-over-WiFi (VoWiFi) services, and compatible 4G LTE smartphones to customers in 2016.