This article appeared in TechNave on 10 November 2022.

Since all the local telcos are on board (except Maxis) with Digital Nasional Berhad's 5G Single Wholesale Network (SWN), Opensignal could finally do better research on Malaysians' 5G experience. Although it's still relatively early, Opensignal reported that we have "demonstrated an impressive improvement over existing 4G networks".

In the analysis, Malaysian 5G users are seeing average download speeds of 284.9 Mbps. Compared with 4G, the download speed was 16.9 Mbps so, in retrospect, that is 16.8 times faster than ever. Also comparing it with neighbouring markets, Malaysian users had 180.2 Mbps (172.2%) higher average 5G download speeds than Thai users’ 104.7 Mbps, but 47.7 Mbps (14.3%) lower speeds when compared to Singaporean users’ average 5G download speeds of 332.6 Mbps.

In other sections, most Malaysian 5G users have a good network experience in mobile gaming and streaming videos. In the charts, the 4G usage for mobile gaming and streaming videos were just Fair but improved to Good and Very Good respectively. For the latter, users saw fast loading times with only occasional stalling, but the experience might have been somewhat inconsistent across users and/or video providers/resolutions.

Opensignal ended the analysis by saying 5G still has room for improvement in the Malaysian market. As DNB continues to expand its 5G SWN across the nation, more Malaysians will have a chance to get connected. However, this also means that Malaysians will need to get a 5G device that is eligible for DNB's list. Although Digi, Celcom and U Mobile have signed on to the SWN, some devices still don't have 5G access such as the iPhone.