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Malaysia’s PSSB wins Digital TV service bid

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Cyberjaya – After a final round of tender evaluation, the MalaysianCommunications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) has named Puncak Semangat Sdn Bhd (PSSB) as the successful bidder to build, operate and manage the infrastructure for Digital Terrestrial Television Broadcast (DTTB) service in Malaysia. This in turn will allow for the digital dividend to be reaped and thus pave the way for more high speed mobile broadband services in the 700 MHz band.

 
MCMC issued a tender on 22 April 2012 to select the best proposal to build and manage the digital infrastructure for DTTB for Free-to-Air (FTA) broadcasters in Malaysia. 

The DTTB infrastructure will enable FTA broadcasters to migrate to a fully digital platform and air more television and radio channels as well as provide additional services such as electronic programme guides (EPG), service information tables, programme associated data, subscriber management systems and multi-lingual audio. 
 
Subsequent to the trial on DVB-T1 conducted in 2005 by RTM, Malaysia adopted the second generation standard called DVB-T2 (Digital Video Broadcasting on Terrestrial – second generation) in 2011 thereby leap frogging to the latest standard in comparison to most other countries around the world which adopted DVB-T as their transmission standard. This latest technology standard enables a wider coverage and the airing of more High Definition channels. 

The tender documents were purchased by 66 companies that comprise systems integrators, equipment suppliers and telecommunications players, amongst others. As per requirement under the tender specifications, the project shall be fully funded by the bidders through their own investments. At the closing date of the tender on 24 July 2012, eight companies submitted their proposals in the form of Business Plans for the first round of evaluation.


MCMC evaluated the Business Plans submitted by eight companies and subsequently shortlisted three companies in November 2012 for the final round of evaluation. The three companies were i-Media Broadcasting Solutions Sdn Bhd, Puncak Semangat Sdn Bhd and Redtone Network Sdn Bhd. 
 
As per the requirements of the tender, the three shortlisted companies prepared more extensive Detailed Business Plans (DBP) from January to June 2013 and submitted them to MCMC by 3 June 2013. Following the submissions of the DBPs, MCMC thoroughly evaluated the three proposals to carefully select a single party to function as a Common Integrated Infrastructure Provider (CIIP) for the Free-to-Air (FTA) broadcasters in the country. The evaluation was done by experts from various professional backgrounds in MCMC from June to October 2013. Additionally, MCMC conducted a market assessment and internal 
benchmarking to further validate the proposals by the three short listed bidders.