Fahmi monitoring dropped call rates during a test performed by the ministry in Kuala Lumpur today (Jan 7). — Bernama
PETALING JAYA: The Communications Ministry said it is taking measures to reduce dropped call rates recorded among users in Malaysia.
“For information, during a period of Jan 1 to Dec 13, 2023, MCMC audit recorded 1,837 dropped call cases including out of coverage cases,” minister Fahmi Fadzil said during a press conference in Putrajaya today (Jan 9).
Following the MCMC audit, Fahmi said the ministry and MCMC had embarked on a number of initiatives.
“Apart from the network optimisation measures by 4G mobile network operators, Digital Nasional Berhad has also activated the Call Reestablishment feature for the LTE700 spectrum band in the 5G network from Dec 21 to Dec 29, 2023 for all 5G sites nationwide,” he said.
Fahmi claimed that as a result of the initiative, figures presented by MCMC indicated a reduction in dropped call rates for each mobile network operator of between 10% to 74%.
MCMC, however, declined to provide exact figures citing sensitivity in the data.
Fahmi said MCMC will continue to monitor the issue throughout the first quarter of the year until March 31 and present their findings to him.
Fahmi said he has also received complaints about dropped calls from members of the public who communicated to him via email.
“I myself experienced a lot of dropped calls,” he said, admitting that he was a Maxis customer and had also used other telcos.
During the press conference, Maxis CEO Goh Seow Eng addressed the issue of dropped calls following Fahmi’s statement: “To give you a certain statistic, in the second half of 2023, for a period of six months from July to December, Maxis has 99 dropped calls.”
Goh added that the issue affected “a very small number of customers” in its almost 11 million customer database.
Fahmi said his ministry will put emphasis on providing quality of experience to consumers.
“So for this administration, we believe that the rakyat deserve not only cheaper Internet and packages, but also better service. To me, this initiative is more than just some of the numbers that were mentioned by Eng (Maxis).
“It also shows the commitment by the MNOs to work together with the regulator and the ministry to solve one of numerous problems,” he added.
On 5G, Fahmi said the total number of subscribers have reached 4.6 million or 13.7% user rate as of November 2023. He also said that telcos are no longer charging additional fees for users to access 5G.
He added that the government will continue to monitor the issue and ensure consumers are not burdened by unnecessary charges through commitments from mobile network operators.
