KUALA LUMPUR: Telekom Malaysia Bhd (TM) is on track to commercially launch its high-speed broadband (HSBB) retail service in the four initial areas of Taman Tun Dr Ismail, Bangsar, Subang Jaya and Shah Alam by the end of the first quarter next year (1Q10).

In a statement yesterday, TM said to date, physical work had been completed at four exchanges and in progress at 44 exchanges, out of 95 exchanges nationwide to be covered by the initial rollout.

It said by the end of 2012, about 1.3 million premises would have access to HSBB services, in accordance with the completion of the first phase of the project agreed with the government.

TM group chief executive officer Datuk Zamzamzairani Mohd Isa said as at end of 2Q09, the government had reimbursed it a total of RM665 million for work completed.

“Gearing up for the commercial launch, we are on schedule to begin retail testing of HSBB triple play services including voice, high-speed Internet and IPTV services involving selected premises in the four initial areas of Taman Tun Dr Ismail, Bangsar, Subang Jaya and Shah Alam as early as next month.”

He said the retail service trials were scheduled to begin with 150 households involving TM employees residing in the four areas by mid-November 2009. Following that, in January next year, additional 300 selected households within the same areas will be involved.

TM said it had also completed two pilot consumer studies to determine the best composition of the HSBB retail packages which will comprise basic and add-on services that will be disclosed nearer to the launch date next year.

It said preparation of the soft infrastructure support ecosystem was also in progress, with over 4,700 staff having undergone HSBB related training. TM has also trained 489 out of 800 of its TM HSBB contractor force overseeing the physical fibre access rollout.

TM currently has more than 1.4 million Streamyx customers (excluding Streamyx Zone customers) as at 2Q09.