edotco Accelerates Expansion To Enhance Equitable Connectivity In Asia
Kuala Lumpur, June 1, 2022 – edotco Group, one of Asia’s leading integrated telecommunications infrastructure companies, reiterated its commitment to enhancing equitable connectivity in Asia by expanding its operations and leveraging its pioneering Network and Planning Analytics (NaPA) and Digital Twin tools to facilitate the impending 5G rollouts in its nine markets.
The company also reaffirmed its ambition to become one of the world’s top five Tower Companies (TowerCos). At a media briefing today, the company explained how its pioneering Network and Planning Analytics (NaPA) tool could provide insights into potential locations for new tower sites and reduce build and delivery time.
The NaPA tool uses powerful geocoding and analytics to generate coordinates with granularity and accuracy, thereby helping identify areas lacking connectivity in the markets and bridging the digital divide. In Malaysia, since its launch in 2019, the NaPA tool has been able to identify potential coordinates for future infrastructure deployment.
Through the NaPA tool, edotco has successfully identified and installed 113 sites that meet the National Fiberisation and Connectivity Plan (NFCP) objectives and 223 sites for Jalinan Digital Negara (JENDELA) initiative nationwide.
The NaPA tool was developed entirely by edotco’s in-house engineers to proactively assist MNOs to be more efficient in achieving their planning objectives.
Complementing the NaPA tool is the Digital Twin, which utilises drone technology to capture a digital copy of the physical asset to assist customers in interacting, analysing, simulating, predicting, and improving performance remotely without needing to be at the tower sites physically.
The innovative drone technology and advanced software solution empower data capture, labelling and calculation with auto report generation through artificial intelligence/machine learning processes.
All of these are part of edotco’s Zero Touch initiative to deliver differentiated value to customers and drive their business outcomes via analytics and AI.
In his welcome speech, Mohamed Adlan Ahmad Tajudin, Director & Group CEO of edotco Group, says, “We want to be the tower company of choice, delivering value to our customers in terms of price, efficiency, and productivity, and collaborating with MNOs to increase their revenue generation potential. We also intend to expand into several new markets in Southeast Asia and South Asia, completing our presence in the region over the next few years.
“This expansion is required to ensure that the company continues to deliver scale while solidifying our foothold in the region and solidifying our position as the leading pan-Asian next-generation TowerCo.”
The digital inclusion challenge
Faster network infrastructure rollout can contribute to digital inclusivity only if the cost of access is within reach of the masses. Currently, a prime challenge for MNOs to drive holistic telecommunications evolution is their ability to provide not only reliable but also affordable services.
TowerCos are hence best positioned to assist these MNOs by moving up their value chain to offer more innovative 5G-enabled solutions such as OpenRAN, Network-as-a-Service solutions, and Edge Computing to help MNOs deploy their own cost-effective and network-efficient solutions.
‘The telecommunications industry – particularly in fast-growing markets such as Asia – faces a significant challenge in lowering cost per Gb, which can only be reliably done through a higher degree of network sharing.
“TowerCos could contribute to this endeavour by deepening tower sharing, using advanced data analytics, especially around power systems, as well as innovating next-gen solutions such as 5G-enabled street furniture, zero-touch operations and delivering the scale-based cost advantage to the industry.
“Hence, TowerCos can play a catalysing role in unlocking the evolutionary potential of MNOs to not only evolve the telecommunications sector but also multiply digital transformation efforts across businesses, society and government,” says Mohamed Adlan Ahmad Tajudin, Director & Group CEO of edotco Group.
Edotco’s accelerated expansion
edotco’s acquisition in Indonesia for IDR750 billion (RM224 million) and the Philippines’ Sale and Purchase Agreement for PHP42 billion (RM3.42 billion) resulted in edotco acquiring approximately 3,973 new towers in both of their footprint countries.
Following these transactions, edotco is now managing and operating a diverse portfolio of more than 50,000 towers in nine countries: Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Cambodia, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Laos.
edotco’s tower infrastructure expertise is combined with the group’s pioneering analytics tools solution to provide insights into potential locations for new tower sites, identify signal strength, and locate any nearby sites suitable for site-sharing, with the overall goal of reducing build time and cost via site sharing.
Aside from improving digital connectivity, one of edotco’s primary goals is also to become a global sustainability champion.
This includes the company’s goal of achieving carbon neutrality by 2023. As the first step toward fulfilling its ESG commitments, edotco was recently accepted as a signatory member of the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC).