KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia continues to lead in Southeast Asia in terms of 5G network performance.
Malaysia's 5G median download speed of 451.79 Mbps is higher than Singapore's 329.73 Mbps, Thailand's 129.40 Mbps, and the Philippines' 125.14 Mbps, according to Ookla's Speedtest Intelligence report for the fourth quarter of 2023.
Malaysia's 5G network scored the highest Consistency Score globally for Q4 2023 at 97.3 per cent.
The result indicates that 97.3 per cent of Speedtest Intelligence samples on Malaysia's 5G networks exceeded the consistency threshold, which is currently set at a minimum download speed of 25 Mbps and a minimum upload speed of 3.0 Mbps.
In comparison, other top countries, such as North Macedonia and the United Arab Emirates, reported lower consistency scores of 94.1 per cent and 93.9 per cent respectively.
Malaysian 5G users experiencing "slow" download speeds enjoy speeds at least five times faster than the 4G median download speed.
When looking at the bottom 10 per cent of 5G download speed Q4 2023 results, Speedtest Intelligence data indicates that 5G speeds in the 10th percentile clocked in at 203.49 Mbps, a big uplift compared to 4G median download speed, which was 37.23 Mbps.
For further context, Malaysia's median 5G download speed was 451.79 Mbps.
The report said 5G availability in Malaysia increased from 21.0 per cent in Q1 to 27.0 per cent in Q4 of 2023.
Despite the increase, Malaysia is still lagging behind its neighbouring countries such as Singapore and Thailand, which have 53.8 per cent and 45.5 per cent 5G availability respectively. Malaysia is only slightly higher than the Philippines, at 26.2 per cent.
The government announced its decision to shift from a single wholesale network to a dual network model for the country's 5G deployment last May.
The second 5G network is aimed to establish redundancy for 5G while paving the way for more robust and reliable 5G services in the country.
The transition to dual network model was expected to begin in January 2024 after Digital Nasional Bhd (DNB) achieved 80 per cent 5G coverage.
At the end of December 2023, DNB reported that 5G coverage in populated areas throughout the country had surpassed 80.2 per cent.
However as of March this year, there has yet to be any news from the government regarding the establishment of the second 5G network.