Any News On Dtac Hsdpa

[zab]

I took a trip to fortune IT mall BKK today with my girlfriend. I was looking for a cheap CDMA ev-do aircard for my laptop. When I visited hardware house, I noticed they had quite a few HSDPA aircards for sale ?

is this a good sign ? are we 3G bound very very soon? If so I'll be very pleased - anyone got any more information ? I see from googling that Dtac have conducted tests recently ( January ) but that was the last bit of news I found.

[lomatopo]

Saw this story last week...

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Thailand - 3G within a year

Minister prioritises 3G wireless: Public and private firms to link up

Thailand will aim to establish a nationwide, third-generation wireless broadband network within one year, according to Mun Patanotai,minister of Information and Communications Technology.

He said the state-owned TOT Corp and CAT Telecom would invite the three main cellular operators to participate in a joint project to establish a High-Speed Downlink Packet Access (HSDPA) system with the aim of becoming operational within one year.

The venture could be structured with private firms acting as strategic partners with the two state enterprises. This would avoid a lengthy review under the 1992 public-private joint-venture law.

"I want both the TOT and CAT to hold talks with Advanced Info Service, DTAC and True Move about a joint wireless broadband system," Mr Mun said.

HSDPA technology can be quickly deployed by leveraging the existing GSM system infrastructure, the technology used by all three main mobile operators.

Upgrading the current GSM systems to third-generation high-speed wireless technology would also eliminate the need to secure new licences from the National Telecommunications Commission, which has been slow to approve new 3G and wireless broadband technologies.

Mr Mun said a co-operative approach would help break the long-standing deadlock that has hindered technological development of the telecom sector.

He claimed that the private operators were prepared to invest heavily in the new system, which involves cost upgrades of around two million baht per GSM base station cell site.

The three largest cellular operators have around 27,000 cell sites nationwide.

"If we just let things go on as they are now and wait for the existing concessions to expire, it will be too late and significantly affect both the TOT and CAT," Mr Mun said. "The day the concessions expire, their value will be zero. And we will have lost all opportunities to develop the sector and the overall economy."

AIS operates mobile services under a revenue-sharing concession with TOT Plc, while DTAC and True Move have a similar concession with CAT Telecom.

Efforts to introduce new technologies have been long hindered by legal conflicts over existing concessions, regulatory delays and policy uncertainties.

Previous governments have supported converting the existing concessions into new licences, with the network assets now owned by the state but operated by the private sector to be sold off to existing operators for a fee.

But concession conversion has made zero progress due to conflicts regarding how the assets should be valued and the compensation that should be paid to the state enterprises. Both the TOT and CAT derive the bulk of their revenues from their concession-sharing arrangements.

Mr Mun said that allowing the concessions to expire over the next decade would be costly for the country's economy and consumers alike.

HSDPA technology is used by 154 network operators in 71 countries. The protocol is part of the GSM family, which dominates the world's mobile systems with a market share of 86 percent.

Mr Mun, 67, has degrees in economics, political science and law. He said he also wanted to improve not just the country's ICT infrastructure, but also digital content available to the public.

He plans to also push forward with legal reforms to certify the use of electronic signatures and contracts in commercial transactions to eventually support the full development of a digital and paperless economy.

Software development, a 50-billion-baht per year business, also could be expanded significantly, particularly in terms of local development.

"We need to establish quality tool centres in the country for the industry to grow," Mr Mun said.

"I will co-ordinate closely with the National Telecommunications Commission and the National Electronics and Computer Technology Center to eliminate existing development obstacles and establish a clear policy going forward."

A shift to HSDPA technology would be a major policy reversal. CAT Telecom now offers cellular service in 25 provinces under the CDMA system, a protocol incompatible with GSM networks, through Hutchison CAT Wireless Multimedia.

CAT has commissioned China's Huawei Technology to expand the CDMA system to another 51 provinces, although the project has been mired in legal conflicts over delays in meeting the contract terms.But CDMA currently claims only around 980,000 users nationwide, compared to a combined 53 million cellular subscribers for AIS, DTAC and True Move.

"Even Hutchison agrees that there is no point in moving forward with CDMA. Establishing a new network altogether would be more effective," said one senior CAT Telecom executive.

A CAT group looking into the possibility of a joint public-private venture into HSDPA third-generation technology concluded that the best model would be to leverage existing contracts between the private operators and the state.

DTAC and True Move would transform their build-transfer-operate concessions into a lease agreement for 850Mhz network assets already transferred to CAT. Hutch, meanwhile, would have its marketing contract for CDMA scrapped and instead be directed to network assets now used by True Move and Hutch for 3G services.

AIS would undergo a similar transformation, switching its concession into a lease agreement for the 900 and 1900Mhz frequencies with TOT.

[dave_boo]

Following this thread.

[dave_boo]

For those interested, I also came across this link:

Since it had to be cached, is it wrong for me to post it in its entirity?

The race toward 3G

New minister sees no need to wait for regulators, which is music to the ears of mobile operators. By Komsan Tortermvasana and Chiratas Nivatpumin

The thunderbolt cast by the Information and Communications Ministry last week has left DTAC happy indeed.

The second-ranked mobile operator appears to hold a slight advantage over its rivals in the race to 3G, thanks to the fact that its legacy 850MHz bandwidth can be quickly turned to provide high-speed, third-generation mobile broadband services.

True Move, the third-ranked operator, would seem to be in the weakest position, as it could face potentially lengthy talks with its concession holder, CAT Telecom, to gain the frequencies it needs.

And while market leader Advanced Info Service boasts that it will roll out High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) technology next month, handset limitations for its 900MHz and 1.9GHz systems could delay the start of commercial service.

The sea change in the telecom sector comes courtesy of ICT Minister Mun Patanotai, who last week announced his intention to see 3G services operational in Thailand within the next six to 12 months.

No need to wait for any licences from the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), Mr Mun said. Instead, AIS, DTAC and True Move could upgrade their existing networks and offer 3G under the same revenue-sharing concessions used for existing mobile services.

At a meeting on Friday with top telecom executives, Mr Mun called for all players to put past differences aside and move forward to develop the country's telecommunications infrastructure.

''I want both the public and private sectors to set aside their grievances and legal battles and instead to focus on HSPA. Full services should be made available within one year,'' Mr Mun said.

HSPA technology is already in use by more than 175 networks in dozens of countries. With more than 53 million subscribers in Thailand, the three main operators view 3G as a key step toward offering higher-value broadband internet and multimedia applications.

DTAC in January conducted a limited test of 3G services on the 850MHz frequency in co-operation with its concession partner, state-owned CAT Telecom. The state enterprise next week plans to submit a formal request to the NTC to deploy 3G technology.

AIS, meanwhile, is confident that it can be first to the market with HSPA as its own partner, TOT Corp, already has NTC approval to import 3G equipment.

AIS says it will begin importing 3G equipment from Huawei Technologies of China early next month, with commercial services expected to start in the fourth quarter.

The NTC has given approval to AIS to upgrade 30 base stations to HSPA in a programme expected to cost $20 million.

AIS president Wichien Mektrakarn expressed confidence that the company and TOT would clear any regulatory hurdles and be the first to offer 3G. Installation and testing for a limited rollout would likely take at least three months, he said. ''Still, there are no guarantees that we will be first. But we can't stand still,'' Mr Wichien said.

DTAC chief executive Sigve Brekke is also buoyed by the new approach.

''The ICT minister has sent a strong signal to the market that it is ready to move ahead,'' he said, adding that his company was confident that it could quickly take a leading position.

But it remains unclear whether the Thai market is willing to pay for more expensive mobile services, considering that lower-cost prepaid accounts represent 90% of the existing customer base.

Efforts to promote faster GPRS and Edge services have had only a minor impact on the market, even with heavy marketing campaigns to promote MMS (multimedia messaging service), mobile TV and other broadband services.

Mr Brekke acknowledged that data services now appealed only to a minority, but he believes market growth will be rapid once mobile broadband became a reality. Thailand's underdeveloped broadband internet infrastructure meant huge growth potential for mobile broadband, he said.

Mr Brekke's confidence in the new 3G policy no doubt stems from a quirk of fate _ the company's 850MHz frequency, allocated years ago for analogue use, is currently unused and can be upgraded to 3G with no disruption to existing customers.

AIS, on the other hand, already runs its 900MHz at full capacity with voice traffic, and running 3G on a higher 1.9GHz frequency would potentially require higher investment costs due to the need for more cell sites when compared with 850MHz. AIS hopes to access the 1.9GHz frequency formerly used by Thai Mobile through a partnership announced earlier this year with TOT.

Handset availability will be another key factor in determining which operator gets to market first. Nokia already has 850MHz phones that will fit with DTAC's plans. While the US uses both 850MHz and 1.9GHz for 3G, and Australia 850MHz, much of the rest of the world uses the 2.1GHz band.

In any case, while AIS and DTAC jockey for position, the clear loser is True Move, the mobile arm of True Corp. True will have to wait for CAT Telecom to close its own cellular operations with Hutchison CAT Wireless Multimedia before it can begin 3G operations.

CAT president Phisal Jorpocha-udom said the state enterprise was in talks with Hong Kong's Hutchison, the major shareholder of Hutchison CAT Wireless, about the future of the CDMA service.

Most analysts expect CDMA, which is incompatible with the GSM system used by AIS, DTAC and True Move, to be terminated in Thailand. CAT would then shift its 850MHz frequency to both True Move and Hutch for HSPA service.

True Move chief executive Supachai Chearavanont acknowledged that the company would have to wait for CAT before it could move forward with 3G.

''Unfortunately, we don't have any frequencies to start with like [AIS and DTAC] do,'' he said with a shrug.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I find it interesting that True has to use CAT's 850 mhz band. And that CAT has to first stop their CDMA offerings to do that. And it looks like the companies involved are going to be using Huawei equipment (which I think CAT is still having problems getting their late fees from!). And AIS wants to use the 1900 band (which only a few other countries use!--and will cost more due to the increase in towers).

Why can't they settle on 2100 like most of the rest of the world?

Edited March 26, 2008 by dave_boo

[nikster]

The sea change in the telecom sector comes courtesy of ICT Minister Mun Patanotai, who last week announced his intention to see 3G services operational in Thailand within the next six to 12 months.

The new ICT minister seems to be a very big improvement over the old one who didn't use email and who found the internet "not exciting".

Good news

AIS also plans to replace all DSL with WiMax which is pretty ridiculous. The WiMax trials in the U.S. have been a huge disaster so far. The main problem seems to be that it simply doesn't work.

[monty]

The WiMax trials in the U.S. have been a huge disaster so far. The main problem seems to be that it simply doesn't work.

Doesn't mean you can't sell it in Thailand. Just hand it to the iPSTAR team, they have loads of experience marketing a hardly working system

[dave_boo]

The WiMax trials in the U.S. have been a huge disaster so far. The main problem seems to be that it simply doesn't work.

Doesn't mean you can't sell it in Thailand. Just hand it to the iPSTAR team, they have loads of experience marketing a hardly working system

Oh, snap.

[bkk_mike]

The states is trying to do the 2nd type of Wimax - mobile Wimax, including passing between cell towers and the like. (at least Sprint is).

Personally - I don't think Wimax will work in central Bangkok, because the population density is too high (it's a shared signal after all), and it won't like the tall buildings causing bouncing of signals.

For the moo bans in the suburbs, fixed Wimax may well work, but they've mostly got ADSL there already, and I'd trust an ADSL connection to work better than Wimax or HSDPA in a thunderstorm in rainy season.

Regardless of all of this, the biggest issue with the internet in Thailand will still be the ridiculously bad connection to the rest of the world - i.e. HSDPA and Wimax may well give you very fast connections to the local base station, and even to the Telecom company's network, but you'll still get shitty connection speeds the second you hit the IIG.

[OyvindBallestad]

I took a trip to fortune IT mall BKK today with my girlfriend. I was looking for a cheap CDMA ev-do aircard for my laptop. When I visited hardware house, I noticed they had quite a few HSDPA aircards for sale ?

is this a good sign ? are we 3G bound very very soon? If so I'll be very pleased - anyone got any more information ? I see from googling that Dtac have conducted tests recently ( January ) but that was the last bit of news I found.

There are several providers making plans and/or building.

I researched a bit, and here is the information i found:

<url>

http://answer4it.net/2008/03/28/umts-hsdpa...ac-cat-telecom/

</url>

best regards

Øyvind Ballestad TMIET