Brunei’s Unified National Networks (UNN), which celebrated its fifth anniversary this week, has reported big improvements in its fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) and 5G coverage in recent years. The state-owned company, which was established on 4 December 2018, says it has decreased the number of copper lines in service from 30,000 in 2019 to 7,685, while FTTH subscriptions have surged in the same time frame, from 86,590 to 156,720. As such, the telco says that 93.1% of populated areas have now been ‘fiberised’. Fibre networks now span 5,829km, up from 3,752km in 2019 and average residential broadband speeds have increased from 20Mbps to 100Mbps.

In terms of mobile coverage, 5G connectivity – launched in June 2023 – is now available to 92% of the population. By contrast, mobile networks were available to just 12% of the population in 2019. UNN says it will expand its mobile network to incorporate remote areas over the next two years.

TeleGeography notes that UNN officially took control of all of the network infrastructure which had previously been operated by Telekom Brunei (TelBru), Datastream Digital (DST), Progresif and Brunei International Gateway (BIG) on 1 September 2019, and started offering access to all of the country’s retail players on a wholesale basis.

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