Maxis Communications Bhd has handed out research grants amounting to RM774,000 to two universities to fund studies aimed at improving the local mobile communications industry.
Multimedia University (MMU) and the University of Malaya (UM) received the grants under Maxis' Industry Development Programme. Researchers from MMU will analyse two areas of communications techology - the future of mobile network architecture design and subscriber behaviour - while UM researchers will be focusing on video compression.
Datuk Jamaludin Ibrahim, Maxis chief executive officer, said the world of mobile technology needs to be explored further because it is limitless. The maximum benefits of communications technology have yet to be fully tapped, he said.
"It is a challenge to understand the suitability of current and future technologies that work best to deliver the nation's future wireless communications needs in the most efficient way," Jamaludin said.
He said the collaboration between Maxis and the academia will allow an exchange of expertise. "They have some expertise that we don't and vice-versa, and hopefully together we will do a better job in R&D," he said.
Jamaludin said the results of the research will not be exclusive to Maxis alone. "It is to better improve the local telecommunications industry and we will be sharing the results," he said.
Members of the research team, Dr Lee Sze Wei and Chang Yoong Choon from MMU and Prof P. Raveendran from UM are happy that their subjects were chosen as pioneers for the grants. "With the grants, we will be able to conduct more studies and even develop new areas of study," said Raveendran.
Maxis' Industry Development Programme is in its first phase and the telco plans to make it an ongoing initiative. It is now in talks with other institutes of higher learning to begin phase two of the initiative. Jamaludin said the grants in phase two would be slightly higher, but declined to disclose the total amount. -theStar
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