SHAH ALAM: Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM) has inked a five-year partnership with two telecommunications tower facility providers.

The deal with Konsortium Jaringan Selangor Sdn Bhd (KJS) and D’Harmoni Telco Infra Sdn Bhd involves linking their base stations with TM’s high-speed fibreoptic-based Internet-access technology for fast, high-capacity network connectivity.

Datuk Adnan Rofiee, TM Group chief executive officer, said the telco’s Wholesale Ethernet and High-Speed Broadband services would be utilising the base stations to deliver web access speeds of up to 1Gbps (Gigabit per second).

KJS and D’Harmoni operate exclusively in Selangor and Johor respectively. Each have more than 200 base stations scattered across their respective states.

The deal also means that their customers — such as local mobile and wireless Internet service operators looking to expand service reach in the two states — can leverage on TM’s expertise, as well as its scalable and future-proof infrastructure.

“And, they will be able to get this done in much shorter time,” said Adnan. Normally, such operators would need to open separate discussions with the base station owners in the various areas and the network infrastructure provider.

Only after signing agreements with all the parties would the operators be able to start their operations in those particular areas. This is a time-consuming process.

“Now, all they need to do is contact either KJS or D’Harmoni and they can have their connections set up in almost no time at all,” Adnan said.

TM announced that the partnership will strengthen its position as a neutral wholesale service provider, and will complement the roll out of its high-speed broadband services.

The telco giant expects to enter into partnership with other tower owners and Internet service operators in the other states later this year.

“We foresee significant interest in this area,” Adnan said.