The implementation of 5G coverage in Malaysia has improved digital connectivity while offering a seamless experience to users. Through it YES became one of the first operators to offer the service. This was followed by other operators such as Celcom, Digi, Telekom Malaysia and U Mobile in early November last year, while Maxis in August recently.
Sharing more about it, Ookla's latest report shows that the performance of 5G in Malaysia is quite encouraging in the third quarter of 2023. The 5G download speed in Malaysia is the third fastest globally with an average speed of 485.25 Mbps. This puts Malaysia ahead of some of its closest neighbors such as Singapore (338.36 Mbps), Thailand (141.65 Mbps) and the Philippines (124.58 Mbps).
However, the use of 5G technology among the general population in Malaysia still needs to be improved because only 30.1% of them actually take advantage of 5G capabilities on devices. This clearly shows that users in this country still depend on the 4G network, at the same time there is also the possibility that many of them have not yet subscribed to a telecommunications plan that supports 5G.
In addition, according to Ookla, the implementation of 5G also supports the improvement of 4G LTE performance in Malaysia. Through it the 4G download speed has increased to 3.6.95 Mbps compared to 24.04 Mbps in the third quarter of last year. Upload speeds have also continued to improve over the same period, but there is no specific average value through the report.
For the record, the government previously set a target for the 5G network to reach 80% by the beginning of 2024. Although this sounds interesting, the reality is that performance is also expected to decrease from the current time due to the increasing number of people using it.