It is clear who currently calls the shots on 5G fees in the country. No, it is not the wife of Minister of Communications and Digital Fahmi Fadzil, who complained to him three months ago about the monthly fees for 5G mobile phone service.

Asked in parliament last week why several mobile network operators (MNOs) still insist on charging subscribers an additional fee of up to RM20 a month to get 5G service, Deputy Minister of Communications and Digital Teo Nie Ching said the ministry and the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) were exploring options to “ensure that MNOs comply with the request” to waive the 5G fees. According to Teo, the MNOs argue that the 5G fees are justified because of their “commercial decision” to purchase 5G network access from Digital Nasional Bhd (DNB).

Did the MNOs mention that the 5G network access saves them capital expenditure (capex) on 5G and reduces the need to spend on capacity expansion on the existing 4G network infrastructure?

To use the highway analogy, having users on the 5G “super highway” reduces traffic congestion on the existing 4G “highway”. So, unless the MNOs had no intention of spending money to maintain the quality of service on their own 4G network as mobile data usage goes up, the “commercial decision” to purchase 5G network capacity from DNB merely changes what would have been capex on 4G to operating expenditure (opex) under 5G.

The Edge has written that instead of providing consumers with 5G packages with cheaper monthly commitment fees — which is possible, with 5G network access from DNB costing less than half of what was needed to build access on the 4G network — most MNOs are choosing to give more data than users can consume to “artificially” bring down the average 5G charge below RM1 per gigabyte (GB). The minister knows this.

If those 5G fees remain and consumers do not get cheaper 5G as promised by the cheaper 5G rollout costs, it will be even clearer who actually calls the shots in the telecom space.