Malaysia’s Railway Assets Corp (RAC) announced that it has contracted telco YTL Communications to build out fibre optic infrastructure along 1,600 km of railway track, putting an end to the railway fibre monopoly held by Telekom Malaysia’s Fiberail.
RAC said in a statement it put put a request for proposal (RFP) for the project in 2023 as part of Malaysia’s National Broadband Plan and the National Digital Network (Jendela), with the objective of leveraging railway assets to build part of the country’s digital network backbone.
The project was facilitated by a wayleave from the government that enables more telecoms players to bid for railway telecoms projects. Before the new wayleave, Fiberail – which is 53.99%-owned by TM – had exclusive rights to install fibre networks along all railway routes, according to The Edge Malaysia.
RAC said that the new wayleave will not affect existing exclusive rights held by Fiberail under a separate wayleave agreement with railway operator Keretapi Tanah Melayu (KTM, which owns 35.99% of Fiberail) that is valid until 2032.
According to Malay Mail, Transport Minister Anthony Loke said YTL was selected for the project because it offered the highest ROI in its proposal.
Loke clarified that the new wayleave arrangement also means that YTL Communications doesn’t gain exclusive rights from the RAC contract.
“There is no longer any exclusivity. From time to time, we will consider other telecommunications providers as well,” Loke told the newspaper. “This is to ensure, firstly, that we have more fibre optic networks in place to improve our digital reach and communications infrastructure.”
