Sustainability in Malaysia’s new digital paradigm

edotco Group wins Infrastructure Technology - Telecommunications trophy at the Malaysia Technology Excellence Awards.

With the need for innovation in building its connectivity structures, Malaysia is now focusing on preparing for the next normal to support not only industry 4.0 technologies and 5G applications but also broad-based digital connectivity. 

Leading telecommunications infrastructure services company, edotco Group has implemented newer, more sustainable and innovative solutions in the development of these structures, and in doing so, managed to win the Infrastructure Technology - Telecommunications Award at the Malaysia Technology Excellence Awards 2022. 

The awards programme recognises key innovations as well as major industry disruptors and players in the tech industry of Malaysia, and edotco Group stood out for its innovative and sustainable approach to building the country’s future connectivity structures. 

With over 16,000 towers and managed sites across Malaysia, edotco built its towers using a built-to-suit and co-location offerings model allowing telecommunications providers to efficiently meet their growing infrastructure needs. The complementary offerings are designed to meet the ever-changing needs of edotco’s customers and partners whilst promoting the increased sharing of infrastructure assets. 

This sharing of assets leads to the development of advanced and innovative structures that prove to be robust, sustainable, and cost-efficient. edotco’s Low-Cost Solution (LCS) towers also leave a less impactful environmental footprint by reducing CO2 emissions by 48% to 63% and providing cost optimisation by integrating the platform and foundation, saving 15% to 20% in costs. 

Lease rent prices are also reduced thanks to the LCS towers’ low requirements, as well as improved consolidation that allows three tenants to use the tower, instead of standard two. 

Apart from the LCS, another tower under edotco is the Spun Pre-stressed Concrete (SPC) pole tower, which encapsulates the company’s focus on alternative solutions for connectivity infrastructure through the use of composite hybrid towers built on prestressed concrete poles and steel poles lattice towers. By utilising concrete more than being dependent on steel as the material for telecom superstructure development, the final price of the tower is less impacted by the fluctuations in the price of steel whilst also providing a robust design and ample protection against flood in prone areas and a longer lifespan due to concrete needing little to no maintenance during its lifetime. 

Malaysia’s push for nationwide digital connectivity through the National Digital Network (Jendela) initiative is greatly aided by edotco’s innovative structures, which have accelerated the initiative’s implementation with their award which allowed them to develop 14 clusters for 250 sites whilst also making use of the Universal Service Provision (USP) 19 Clawback for Fiber across 24 sites in Malaysia.

The edotco Group is leveraging its innovative structures for a future powered by 5G instead of the usual broad-based connectivity, securing approximately 250 5G sites with DNB Malaysia in addition to their 5G active distributed antenna system (DAS) which helps bring cellular coverage to areas where 5G outdoor cells cannot provide decent coverage. These DAS modules were installed at the KL Sentral transportation hub and the Ministry of Finance building at Putrajaya.