Malaysia's U Mobile is prematurely winding down its network sharing agreement with rival Maxis after deciding to focus on expanding its own network.
The two companies entered an agreement in 2011 to share Maxis' 3G RAN. At the time the agreement was to last for 10 years.
But Maxis has announced that this agreement will be wound down in stages over the next 18 months until late December 2018, the Star Onlinereported.
As well as the 3G RAN, the agreement covered LTE sharing pending spectrum becoming available.
In a statement sent to the Edge Markets, U Mobile CEO Wong Heang Tuck said the company has decided that considering its growing subscriber base, it would be more appropriate to focus on expanding its own network.
The operator was recently awarded 2x15MHz of 1800-MHz spectrum and 2x5MHz of 900-MHz spectrum and is upgrading its owned networks to support these new spectrum bands.
U Mobile expects to be able to replace the RAN sharing sites with its own equipment within the wind-down timeline, ensuring no disruption for customers, the statement added.