Maxis Communications Berhad is a mobile phone service provider based in Malaysia. It was started in the year 1995. It uses the dialling prefix identifier of "012", "0142" and "017". Their mobile services are provided over the 900 & 1800 MHz GSM band and as July 2005, the 2100 MHz UMTS band.Maxis provides a variety of mobile communication products and services. They offer prepaid call plans, monthly subscription plans, global roaming, MMS, WAP (over both GSM and GPRS), Residential Fixed Line services, Broadband Internet plans, and as of early 2005, 3G services to both pre-paid and subscription customers.

For business customers, Maxis offer VSAT services (satellite based communications) and Blackberry based mobile services besides regular services.

Maxis also provides an online Music store for its customers to download multimedia content.

Maxis' most popular service is its prepaid HotLink brand that currently serves 6.3 million customers in Malaysia. They are currently heavily promoting a new IDD 132 service, which offers discounted calls to landlines in selected countries, at a rate of 20 sen (roughly 6 US cents) per minute which is, at certain times for many subscribers, even cheaper than a local call.

Maxis is currently involved in a price war with its competitors (particularly DiGi) in the pre-paid SIM market which has driven its Hotlink starter pack prices down to RM 6 (about USD$1.2).In 2002, Maxis purchased Timecel, a rival mobile service provider, from TimedotCom Berhad. Prior to the purchase, Maxis offered phone numbers beginning with 012, and TimeCell 017. Now, subscribers can choose between the two. In 1999, Maxis introduced the popular pre-paid brand "Hotlink", which currently has 6.3 Million customers.Maxis officially launched its 3G service on 1st July 2005 (the 3G datacard service was soft-launched earlier in February 2005). The 3G service is avaialble in selected regions of the country since nationwide coverage does not make economic sense (due to the high CAPEX involved)....

 

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Celcom (Malaysia) Berhad is the largest and oldest mobile telecommunications company in Malaysia. Being one of the very few companies in Malaysia to originally obtain a cellular phone license, it successfully introduced mobile telephony in Malaysia through its ART-900 service, using first generation NMT-900 technology.

When the cellular phone market was opened up in 1995, Celcom upgraded to the GSM900 service and quickly grew to become the largest mobile phone company in Malaysia until it was overtaken by Maxis.

During the Asian financial crisis in 1997, Celcom's owner, Tan Sri Tajudin Ramli suffered a debt crunch, and his shareholding in Celcom was seized by Danaharta, the national asset restructuring company. Failure to resolve his debts resulted in the controlling stake in Celcom being sold to Telekom Malaysia, the government-owned incumbent fixed line operator in 2003. Telekom Malaysia proceeded to merge Celcom with its own mobile-operator subsidiary TMTouch through a reverse takeover of TMTouch.

Celcom is one of two 3G service providers currently operating in Malaysia (The other being Maxis). As of 2006 Celcom is offering both 2.5G and 3G services on its Minutes postpaid and Xpax prepaid brands. Current customer base stood at 7 million as of early 2006. Celcom claimed a 95% nationwide mobile service coverage with 3G availability in most of Klang Valley, Johor Bahru, Melaka, Kulim and Penang.

Celcom was originally listed on the Bursa Malaysia, but its listing has been suspended, pending the takeover of Celcom by Telekom Malaysia Berhad and its subsequent merger with TMTouch...