Samsung announced today that it has teamed up with YTL Communications to launch Yes 4G, a 4G LTE service in Malaysia. This will make Yes 4G the fifth choice when it comes to carriers offering 4G LTE service. At the moment, there are four other players in the field, namely Maxis, Celcom, Digi and U Mobile, all of which have captured a significant share of the market.
However, Yes 4G has something that sets it apart from the other carriers in Malaysia. According to Wing K. Lee, CEO of YTL Communications, Yes is the first 4G LTE provider in Malaysia to provide a huge 85 percent of the population with coverage. For comparison, Maxis’ 4G LTE coverage stands at only 82 percent at the moment. Yes is also the first carrier in Malaysia to provide Voice over LTE (VoLTE) which will be able to significantly bump up call quality of voice and video calls, and will provide faster call connections. Through the partnership between Samsung and YTL Communications, YTL has been able to deploy it’s new 4G LTE network service using Samsung’s 4G technology, including network equipment for 2.3GHz and 2.6GHz bands. While other carriers in Malaysia which provide LTE are operating on FDD-LTE Band 3 (1800MHz) and 7 (2600MHz), Yes 4G will be operating on TDD-LTE Band 38 (2600MHz) and 40 (2300MHz). Before this, Yes 4G was just known as Yes and they were known as a WiMax operator which was operating under YTL Communications. Also, the reason why Yes 4G has such a wide coverage in Malaysia is due to the fact that the 85 percent population coverage is inclusive of its current WiMax network.
At the launch today, Yes 4G also unveiled their new Altitude smartphone. In terms of specs, the device comes with 5 inch HD display, a Snapdragon 410 processor coupled with 1 GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage which can be expanded a further 32 GB via microSD. For optics, it gets a 8MP rear camera and a 2MP front facing camera. It also has a 2300 mAh battery and for software, it comes with Android 5.1 Lollipop out of the box. For connectivity options, the device supports LTE and VoLTE networks. It retails for RM 399 ($100) in Malaysia, which is fairly well-priced for a VoLTE enabled smartphone.