JOHOR BAHRU, 23 May 2017 – U Mobile today announced that it is the first telco to commercially launch 4.5G service on 1800 MHz and 2600 MHz in Malaysia, starting with Johor Bahru. U Mobile customers in Johor Bahru will now enjoy twice the speed of 4G on supporting devices such as the Huawei P10 Plus.

Wong Heang Tuck, CEO of U Mobile, was in Johor Bahru today to mark the launch of 4.5G service in the southern city. “U Mobile is very excited to be able to launch 4.5G service in Johor Bahru. From today, customers in Johor Bahru will enjoy significant enhancement in their user experience. For those who are using smartphones that support 4.5G service such as Huawei P10 Plus, the enhancement will be even more significant with up to twice the speed of 4G, making their experiences in streaming, downloading and browsing so much faster and better.”

Heang Tuck also shared that the telco is making a huge investment to upgrade its network to 4.5G this year. “U Mobile’s Capex investment will exceed RM1 billion this year. Most of it will go into the rollout of additional spectrum awarded by the government last year. The additional 1800 MHz was made available recently whilst the 900 MHz will be made available on 1 July 2017. With the additional spectrum, our capacity will increase vastly and our spectrum per user ratio is the highest in the market today. Apart from spectrum rollout, the Capex investment is also going into the enhancement of our network service to 4.5G. In short, all U Mobile customers will experience a dramatic difference in their mobile experience this year, starting with Johor Bahru, Ipoh, Penang and Klang Valley.”

During the launch, Heang Tuck revealed that U Mobile collaborated with Huawei to be the first to make 4.5G service commercially available on 1800 MHz and 2600 MHz to customers.

Abraham Liu Kang, CEO of Huawei Malaysia, said, “We are delighted that Malaysian customers can now experience a better and faster mobile broadband service based on 4.5G technologies. The new service not only allows customers to enjoy new initiatives like high definition (HD) video whenever and wherever they are, it is also a key stepping stone for the realisation of Internet of Things (IoT). We look forward to working with U Mobile and other industry partners to bring new and innovative services to more customers and vertical sectors in the near future.”

The telco recently launched a new postpaid plan called Unlimited Hero P78, offering unlimited high speed data, unlimited calls to all networks and free 5GB for roaming every month in selected countries. U Mobile also entered into a telco-assurance partnership agreement with Sun Life Malaysia last week to offer microinsurance. It is the first mobile service provider to offer such a service and it will be available from October this year.