Asiaspace, TNB in Landmark Deal

By Malcolm Rosario

ASIASPACE DotCom Sdn Bhd, a company led by businessman Datuk Abdul Ghani Abdullah (picture), has entered into a landmark agreement with Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB), enabling it to provide broadband services by using the latter’s fibre optic network.

Business Times was told that the agreement enables Asiaspace to utilise TNB’s vast fibre optic network – believed to be around 10,000km, as well as its facilities to offer duct fibre services and lease line services to businesses and eventually home users.

When contacted at his office in Kuala Lumpur, Asiaspace’s general manager Muhd Yusof Arifin confirmed that Asiaspace will be offering competitively-priced broadband services by using TNB’s vast fibre optic network.

However, he declined to reveal the commercial arrangements between Asiaspace and TNB.

Industry players believe that the TNB-Asiaspace alliance is a step in the right direction for TNB as the only way the state-owned utility company can leverage on its extensive fibre optic network is by leasing it to a Network Facilities Provider (NFP) licencee like Asiaspace and splitting the revenue.

An NFP licence, issued by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission, gives the licence holder the right to provide, construct and maintain facilities like earth stations, satellite hubs, towers, poles, ducts and pits.

Asiaspace is among several companies which have an NFP licence, but the former’s licence is a special kind that does not have restrictions, which makes it attractive to TNB.

With such a licence, the door will be open for Asiaspace to penetrate further into the information and communications technology (ICT) services industry, and even become one of the members of the proposed national telecommunications infrastructure and management company.

Last month, Energy, Water and Communications Minister Datuk Seri Dr Lim Keng Yaik said a telecommunications infrastructure and management company was in the works.

The minister said the company may be formed with the ultimate aim of ensuring every home is wired by fibre optic that allows faster broadband Internet speed.

The company, possibly to be called the National Infocomm Infrastructure Management Corp (Niimco), will be responsible for building and managing telecommunications infrastructure.

While the details of Niimco have yet to be finalised, the company may be owned by a consortium that may comprise the Government, Telekom Malaysia Bhd and other industry players. The infrastructure company will become industry neutral.

“The Government feels that there is a need for Niimco because it is the Governmen’s intention to bring fibre optics to homes in order to get the maximum speed available to move forward into the future,” a telco executive said.

He said TNB, in its own right, has the required infrastructure and land base to be a big player in the ICT business.

“TNB can utilise technologies which will enable the company to send data and voice using its existing power lines and grid,” the telco executive said, but added that it will need the NFP licence to do so.

He said there is no disputing that Asiaspace and TNB can generate massive synergy from the business, not least in leveraging on new technologies to offer consumers high-speed broadband access to the Internet.

With its huge customer base, TNB already has a captive market for a host of ICT services.

(c) 2006 New Straits Times. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.