YTL Communications Sdn Bhd hopes to start building wireless broadband base stations in Sabah and Sarawak second half next year and launch its services there in 2013.

The company recently submitted a detailed business plan to regulator Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) on how it plans to develop its broadband in the two states.

“We were requested by the MCMC to submit a detailed business plan and we have recently submitted it. We believe that there’s a digital divide gap between Klang Valley and most other states.

“For the GDP (gross domestic product) to grow and the country to leap forward, it can’t be done just by investing in the Klang Valley alone,” Wing K. Lee, chief executive officer of YTL Communications said yesterday.

Chief operating officer Ali Tabassi said that the company expects to start building 300-500 base stations in Sabah and Sarawak next year.

He believes the number will grow significantly to more than 500 in two to three years. YTL plans to grow its base stations nationwide from more than 2,000 currently to 4,000 by end-2011.

“The 4,000 base stations will include the expected 300-500 base stations in the two states,” said Tabassi. He spoke to the media after a briefing on IDC’s case study findings.

The case study cited YTL Communications as an “excellent example of innovation” as the technologies it uses are able to address the future needs of consumers and remain competitive.

To date, YTL Communications has more than 300,000 subscribers. In total, its customers had made more than seven million minutes of voice calls, over two million text messages, and 825 terabytes of data (825 terabytes = 825 million megabytes).–BTimes