Digital broadcast: TM eyes bigger role

"We are already in the transmission industry and we are fully capable of being in the (digital) business," group chief executive officer Datuk Zamzamzairani Mohd Isa said, when asked whether the group would consider bidding for a licence to build digital transmission infrastructure for broadcasters to transmit programmes.

The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission was reportedly planning to invite bids for such a licence in the third quarter.

Zamzamzairaini said digital broadcasting is more than just having a physical infrastructure. Such digital service can be linked up with TM's high-speed Internet highway project.

The group, he said, expects to wrap up talks with some licensed service providers on the wholesale purchase of its high-speed broadband (HSBB) project by year-end.
"We are on track with the rolling out of our HSBB project," chairman Tan Sri Md Radzi Mansor said after TM's annual and extraordinary general meetings in Kuala Lumpur yesterday.

Zamzamzairani said discussions with licensed service providers also cover pricing of the wholesale access of the HSBB and capacity requirement.

Besides wholesale access to licensed service providers, TM also plans to sell the HSBB connection straight to the retail market.

TM will face off directly with licensed service providers, who will also be its customers, in the retail market, he said.

TM has signed an agreement with the government to roll out the first phase of the RM11.3 billion national HSBB project over the next 10 years.

Meanwhile, TM will repay shareholders by September 2009 a total of RM3.5 billion from the money it received from Axiata Group Bhd, formerly TM International Bhd.

TM has received the full amount of RM4.03 billion owed to it by Axiata following the demerger exercise of the two companies.

TM shareholders will also get another RM382 million in the form of a final gross dividend, or 14.25 sen per share, by June or July.

Radzi said the capital repayment will not change the group's dividend policy of returning at least RM700 million, or up to 90 per cent of its net profit, to shareholders.

Khazanah Nasional Bhd, which has a 44.5 per cent stake in TM, stands to receive almost RM2 billion cash, or 98 sen per share, from the capital repayment. The second biggest receiver is the Employees Provident Fund, which owns about 15 per cent.