AIS, TOT Plan Joint 3G Broadband Wireless

[george]

AIS, TOT plan joint 3G broadband wireless

BANGKOK: -- Advanced Info Service and TOT have a plan to jointly provide 3G broadband wireless services in metropolitan and upcountry areas.

TOT's senior executive vice president for investment management Suthep Srisuwan said that according to its final calculations, the partnership could save TOT Bt18 billion over the next five years as the state agency would not have to spend heavily on rolling out the 3G network nationwide.

AIS and TOT would develop the 3G service on their 900MHz and 1,900MHz spectra respectively and roam the service between their two existing networks. TOT would tap metropolitan areas, while AIS would focus on the provincial market.

The collaboration is part of the memorandum of understanding they signed in January, involving their joint development of new fixed line-wireless services and network sharing.

As part of the understanding, TOT also permits AIS to lease its own network to continue providing the existing cellular service when its concession period expires in 2015.

The AIS network belongs to TOT, according to their build-transfer-operate agreement.

Somprasong Boonyachai, executive chairman of Shin Corp, the AIS parent company, said AIS would focus on the partnership with TOT and the immediate goal for AIS right now is to apply for new licences from the NTC.

The AIS concession allows it to talk with TOT in 2013 to decide whether AIS extends or amends the concession. AIS will talk with TOT on what to do with the company's customers when the concession ends and whether AIS would lease the TOT network to offer the service after the concession expires, Somprasong added.

"We've behaved nicely over the past 17 years. It would be surprising if TOT does not want to work with us," he said.

AIS, which has more than 24 million mobile-phone subscribers, paid a concession fee of Bt19.691 billion to TOT last year, increasing from Bt18.754 billion in 2006.

All cellular operators have been waiting for the NTC to issue licences to operate 3G broadband cellular bands, which will enable them to offer faster data-content services.

Due to legal complications, the NTC has yet to decide whether it will allocate 3G frequency licences or wait for the establishment of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunication Commission as the regulator to carry out the task.

One analyst said the potential cost savings from 3G licences were massive, given that the total 3G regulatory fee is expected to be 6.5 per cent, way below 25-per-cent concession fee of cellular operators.

-- The Nation 2008-03-17

[tartempion]

Due to legal complications, the NTC has yet to decide whether it will allocate 3G frequency licences or wait for the establishment of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunication Commission as the regulator to carry out the task.

Thanks to the NTC this country is years behind the rest of the world.

15 years ago Thailand promised WTO to have NCC in place by 2000 to undo CAT's and TOT's communication monopoly and to allow free market in this undustry. Needless to say there was no NTC in place early 2000, nor 2001, nor 2002.

Free telecomunication is not going to happen soon and 3G will be late, very late.

Well yeah, you have fabulous EDGE in place isn't

[steveromagnino]

Due to legal complications, the NTC has yet to decide whether it will allocate 3G frequency licences or wait for the establishment of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunication Commission as the regulator to carry out the task.

Thanks to the NTC this country is years behind the rest of the world.

15 years ago Thailand promised WTO to have NCC in place by 2000 to undo CAT's and TOT's communication monopoly and to allow free market in this undustry. Needless to say there was no NTC in place early 2000, nor 2001, nor 2002.

Free telecomunication is not going to happen soon and 3G will be late, very late.

Well yeah, you have fabulous EDGE in place isn't

saying this sounds all a bit Shin seems sad, but this is NTC 2; NTC was blocked to keep Thaksin rich, round 2 is about making sure the Singaporeans don't get excessively broke from the whole mess.

[Plus]

Shin doesn't want to invest in brand new 3G network itself. TOT doesn't want to go in mobile phone business on its own, too. In the end they will share losses, not profits.

[Jefferson]

Free telecomunication is not going to happen soon and 3G will be late, very late.

Well yeah, you have fabulous EDGE in place

It's already late. But count your blessings: Reasonable EDGE wireless internet is available just about EVERYWHERE and at VERY reasonable cost. Ask a random European what they're paying for any kind of mobile internet!

For most uses like e-mail and browsing common web sties, EDGE works well enough. You really only need 3G if you want to be doing streaming audio, video and VOIP.. (That last one should have mobile operators worried, and CAT even more so because nobody would be using their lines for international calls anymore)

Anyway I'm happy to see 3G on the agenda now, even though it sounds like a weird frequency band (Europe it's all 2100 MHz).

As a final reason why 3G is slow in Thailand (other than the reasons mentioned above that you only need it for video & VOIP) could be that the WHOLE INTERNET in Thailand is slow, there's a huge bottle neck when you go outside of Thailand as I'm sure you're all aware, so when you implement 3G then people WILL hit that bottle neck.

Heck, at the worst of times the international connection isn't that much faster than EDGE.. So I would hope some investment can be made in international bandwidth, otherwise 3G won't be very fast.

[Plus]

Maybe they should really skip the whole 3G thing and start working on the next generation HDSPA or what's it called.

Bottlenecks are not the reason at all. They simply can't organise themselves to issue licenses to operate 3G. So far they only gave permissions to test on existing bands, that's why it might appear weird - they use only frequencies they've been assigned ages ago for regular GSM.

It's not clear if NTC alone is legally empowered to issue 3G licenses and allocate new frequencies, for that they need to establish NBC first (National Broadcasting Commitee) but the process has already taken more than ten years and it's nowhere near the end.

[Killroy]

Maybe they should really skip the whole 3G thing and start working on the next generation HDSPA or what's it called.

Bottlenecks are not the reason at all. They simply can't organise themselves to issue licenses to operate 3G. So far they only gave permissions to test on existing bands, that's why it might appear weird - they use only frequencies they've been assigned ages ago for regular GSM.

It's not clear if NTC alone is legally empowered to issue 3G licenses and allocate new frequencies, for that they need to establish NBC first (National Broadcasting Commitee) but the process has already taken more than ten years and it's nowhere near the end.

They should go for HSDPA (turbo 3G),that will give a surfing speed of up to 7,2Mbps maybe higher later on,I use it everyday,and I don't miss a intrnet connection at home.

I can download music,movies with out any problems..

The question is if the operators can find services to attract the customers..,we have live streaming of music,news,tv etc so there is a lot to play around with.