I think a possible near term for TUA to expand in the region is...

I think a possible near term for TUA to expand in the region is Malaysia (Teoh's motherland, population 32M). To speed up the roll out of 5G, the Malaysian government had decided early this year that it will be the only monopoly 5G builder/owner/wholesaler for the country. All existing and new telcos will compete on a equal footing by buying 5G wholesale from Digital Nasional Berhad (DNB), a wholely owned subsidiary of the Finance Ministry. This model is exactly the same as our NBN, all telcos become retailers with a lot of new players entered the market like MyRepublic, AGL Energy, Superloop, Tangerine Telecom, Kogan....etc but the most successful so far is Aussie Broadband (ABB) with their superior service, out of nowhere quickly acquiring a 5% market share. TUAS already have a subsidiary called TUAS Solutions in Malaysia so it can enter the market in multiple ways, set up a new company or acquired an existing MNO/MVNO but at least as far as 5G is concerned, everyone will be on the same level playing field. DNB is currently offering 5G trial in a few areas to all players. With 30+ years experience as a wholesaler/retailer in Australia and no up-front cost to build the network, TPG can quickly establish a meaningful presence. I guess if TUAS decide to enter Malaysia, we would hear very soon.

As I alluded to in a previous post, a feature of 5G SA is.... "Network slicing" where multiple virtual networks can be built. For example, a trucking transport company want a "private lane" on the motorway and this can be done in minutes, not 5/7 years to build like in real life. A telco could buy multiple "slices" from the wholesaler and design virtual networks on these "slices" with different features for different customers like speed, latency, bandwith, network performance with different level of SLA's and QoS's. Network slicing open up new opportunities with unlimited innovations in areas like Virtual Reality, Industry 4.0, IoT, AI...etc. I think this feature is one of the reasons Teoh/Millner decided to enter Singapore as it offers lots of potential in a future where everything is connected (street lamps, cars, animals, drones, machines... ), not just the phones in our hands.

Howie