Maxis has announced that it is the first Malaysian telco to offer 5G international roaming in 3 Asean countries ― Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand. According to the telco, Maxis customers can roam on 5G networks at the same charge as 4G data roaming.
Maxis CEO Gokhan Ogut said “We are pleased to have reached this important milestone with our roaming partners in these three countries and look forward to enabling our customers with the incredible speeds and latency of 5G when travelling. It is a testament to our strong commitment to enabling individuals and business to Always Be Ahead with the best connectivity experience wherever they are. We also urge our customers to always be safe and adhere to the relevant SOPs during their travels.”
The 5G roaming service is available to both Maxis and Hotlink users, and it will be activated automatically on 5G-enabled devices. Before enabling data roaming, users can purchase their preferred plan via the Maxis and Hotlink app.
Maxis currently offers three unlimited 5G roaming data plans for the three supported countries. The 1-day unlimited data pass costs RM29/day, while the 7 days ASEAN Plus Unlimited data plans costs RM49/week. If you’re travelling long term, there’s a longer 30-day World Unlimited Data pass at RM99.
Take note that Maxis has a Fair Usage Policy for its roaming plans. According to the FAQ, the fair usage is 2GB of high-speed data daily and users can enjoy unlimited quota at a reduced speed of 1Mbps, which is still pretty decent. Once you’ve hit your limit, there are no additional charges.
In Singapore, Maxis has roaming agreements with Singtel and Starhub. However, 5G roaming is only available when you connect to Singtel.
For travellers heading to Indonesia, Telkomsel is Maxis’ default roaming partner and it also offers 5G services.
In Thailand, Maxis has roaming agreements with AIS or True 3+. To enjoy 5G, you must connect to AIS.
For more info, you can check out the roaming pages for Maxis and Hotlink.
To enjoy 5G in Malaysia, we’ll have to wait until the end of this year. Malaysia will rollout 5G commercially through Digital Nasional Berhad and existing telcos will offer 5G through a wholesale agreement. DNB has appointed Ericsson as its technology partner and it targets to cover Putrajaya, Cyberjaya and selected areas in Kuala Lumpur by December 2021. ― SoyaCincau