Can Maxis’ metaverse experience live up to customers’ expectations?

• Maxis is exploring how people will live, work, play, and learn in the metaverse in the future
• Metaverse requires a smooth and always available experience for customers

More organizations are now looking to have a strong presence in the metaverse. In Malaysia, telco giant Maxis is also looking into the future of living, working, playing, and learning in the metaverse. Will their metaverse initiative, however, fulfil their consumers’ experience given its track record for disruptions and network issues, to mention a few?

Powered by its transformation from a mobile telecommunications provider into a connectivity and digital solutions specialist that offers solutions for every segment and is supported by its industry-leading 4G network, fiber coverage, and best-in-class 5G innovation, RKRM is the reinforcement and deepening of Maxis’ Always Be Ahead brand purpose.

To build the metaverse environment, stringent computation and communication requirements are necessary. Minimum guarantees in terms of latency, data rates, and processing resources are required to deliver an immersive user experience and real-time interactions and to support millions of concurrent users and content creators. Simply put, 5G will be a key ingredient of the metaverse, something which Maxis has yet to explain when they will exactly deploy.

The issues with telcos

As of now, for a full-fledged metaverse implementation, the current computing and communications infrastructure is not yet ready – especially in Malaysia – at least for now. Here’s why.

Malaysians are well familiar with this because they deal with slow network speeds or complete lack of coverage virtually daily. The underground railroad, rural areas, and even the indoor city center do not all have basic service, despite the fact that mobile operators have stated that Malaysia will have a high percentage of 4G LTE coverage.

Metaverse requires a smooth and always available experience for customers. However, Malaysians have been facing with repeated network disruptions. Just recently, Maxis’ users have reportedly been experiencing problems with mobile data and phone calls since early morning due to a network outage.

In response to numerous customer concerns posted on social media, Maxis advised putting airplane mode on and off to attempt reconnecting again if there was no signal. This brings up another issue, customer service.

Telcos have enabled chat features as part of customer service. Yet, some telco consumers don’t get to interact with a human and instead find up communicating with a chatbot that lacks information. In fact, these chatbots frequently returned the same answer that users weren’t asking for.

There is nothing wrong with Maxis entering the metaverse, but they need to be more consistent in the services they promote and offer to their customers. Their network appears to be inconsistent, yet that is the fundamental service they should be excelling at.

Maxis’ approach to an immersive metaverse experience

Maxis’ decision to enter the metaverse is a big call; for their customers to experience it, they would need to upgrade their infrastructure.

It is important to note that the metaverse requires new user equipment that has never been utilized on mobile networks and pervasive high-bandwidth, low-latency communications. The people building the metaverse depend on telecom corporations to play a crucial role in the ecosystem to get the metaverse to function at scale.

Maxis in the metaverse, though still in its early phases, strives to offer a distinctive destination for an immersive experience with highly interesting, pertinent, and rewarding interactions. Through the platform, Maxis provides a glimpse into the potential of what the future may look like from a variety of perspectives, including gaming, enterprise solutions showcase, essential services, luring talent, immersive education, and building an ecosystem of partnerships with multi-industry verticals.

According to Maxis Chief Sales and Service Officer Patrick Er, the metaverse reflects the company’s brand purpose and core value of What’s Possible because it opens people’s minds to the possibilities of what they can do in the future of digital technology to continue providing the best possible customer service.

“This is just the beginning of an exciting digital journey, and we look forward to more to come on this platform, so keep watching this space!” said Patrick.

Maxis has presented “Maxis Centre Decentraland”, the first virtual telco store in Malaysia, to kick off this exploring phase. It is a connected retail experience on the metaverse that provides customers with specific services. Users can browse and purchase Maxis’ goods and services using cutting-edge 3D technology, explore and gain inspiration for home improvements using Maxis’ home appliances powered by Maxis Fibre, and even buy collector NFTs made in partnership with Malaysian artists.

The performance of Maxis’ metaverse is, of course, still too early to predict, but let’s hope it lives up to expectations.

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