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shared RAN with dynamic spectrum
usage; and secure MVNO.
He also discussed such networks’
potential evolution, envisaging three
steps along the way. The fi rst of these
consists of a considerable amount of
‘alphabet soup’ – even by our industry’s
standards – comprising LTE MCPTT/
MCVideo, VoLTE, MBB and NB-IoT, and
so on. The second phase comprises the
adoption of 5G New Radio for high and
fl exible capacity, along with URLLC (ultrareliable
low-latency communications).
The third phase, meanwhile, consists of
real-time end-to-end traffi c observability,
strict device synchronisation and timesensitive
networking.
The Malaysian story
The CCW 2019 conference kicked off
on the second day with a series of
presentations looking at specifi c national
roll-outs. As was only fi tting given the
event’s location, these included in the
fi rst instance keynotes from Al-Ishsal
Ishak, chairman of national regulator
the Malaysian Communications and
Multimedia Commission (MCMC), and
Praba Sangarajoo, vice-president,
business development at host
operator Sapura. Ishak began his
presentation by giving a general overview
of the communications environment
within the country, mentioning also
the numerous opportunities that are
anticipated following the maturation of
technologies such as 5G. Regarding the
latter – alongside the likes of big data
analysis and AI – he said these had the
potential to represent nothing less than a
“fourth Industrial Revolution”.
“5G networks will change all aspects
of human life,” he said. “That is the
promise. As such, it’s important for us
to unlock such hi-tech capabilities for
critical communications as well. In light
of this, Malaysia has embarked on efforts
to improve the country’s connectivity
through its national fi berisation and
connectivity plan, a development which
was announced in October 2018. We’re
going to be moving towards a very
important phase within the industry.”
According to Ishak, this plan was
developed to provide a nationwide
public digital infrastructure which is
“robust, pervasive and affordable”,
thereby enabling the adoption of the
aforementioned new technologies.
Moving onto the subject of missioncritical
communications in particular
– and again, how things are likely to
develop in the coming years – Ishak
started by giving some context on
the geopolitical situation: “The global
population will increase to approximately
9.7 billion in 2020. This in turn will
be accompanied by an increase in
urbanisation, with around 68 per cent
of the world’s population living in cities
by 2050. Malaysia itself is predicted
to register urbanisation of 85 to 90
per cent, a fi gure which is massive by
any standard.”
He continued: “That being the case,
PPDR public protection and disaster
relief radio communications will
become increasingly vital to maintain
law and order, as well as in response to
emergency situations. With advances
in mobile broadband technology,
there exists the capacity for enhanced
capability and capacity in this realm too.”
Outlining the country’s plan to
improve public safety communications
in parallel with the aforementioned
fi berisation programme, Ishak stated
that the MCMC had already designated
and harmonised several spectrum bands
for use by PPDR. These include 400 and
800MHz, as well as in the 4.9GHz band,
promising that “we will facilitate more
where possible”.
Following immediately after Ishak,
Sapura’s Sangarajoo gave a brief
overview of the company’s history, in
order to tell what he referred to as the
“Malaysian story”. He followed this by
discussing the challenges presented by
the needs of those within the region, and
how these have been overcome through
the company’s considerable R&D efforts.
For those who don’t know, the
country of Malaysia currently provides
fi rst-responders with nationwide TETRA
coverage in the form of the Sapura
Research-developed Government
Integrated Radio Network (GIRN). The
initial roll-out for this was completed
in 2008, using equipment provided by
Hytera Mobilfunk, with the network later
undergoing expansion using technology
from Teltronic.
Picking up the company’s story in
relation to this, Sangarajoo said Sapura
had started from “humble beginnings”
around a decade ago, manufacturing
VHF and tactical communications radios.
“With the high-frequency radio we then
exported to the world,” said Sangarajoo,
“we subsequently moved into building a
nationwide network.
“In building the GIRN, we had to
make sure all the critical agencies had
coverage. At the same time, however,
we also had a challenge in that we had
to build for many organisations rather
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