Ict Ministry To Accelerate 3g Development

[george]

ICT ministry to accelerate 3G

BANGKOK: -- Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva is pressing the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) minister to accelerate the development of third-generation mobile services in Thailand, because of its benefit to the economy.

ICT Minister Ranongrak Suwanchawee said she met with Mr Abhisit last week to discuss 3G progress, including issues concerning funding sources, base stations and the bidding process.

Announcements would be made over the next two weeks to enable the project owner, TOT Plc, to roll out new services by Dec 16 this year, she said.

The 3G projects should be funded by local financial institutions rather than from overseas, as local banks could offer lower interest rates.

Ms Ranongrak plans to consult the Finance Ministry over which financial institutions should provide the estimated 20 billion baht needed to fund the technology's development.

In the first phase, TOT would upgrade its 1900 megahertz (MHz) network's 500 base stations in Bangkok and surrounding provinces to 3G.

TOT would then start introducing new 3G services every three months to achieve its stated target of 4,700 base stations by the end of the next year.

-- Bangkok Post 2009-05-08

[webfact]

<Quote>ICT Minister Ranongrak Suwanchawee said she met with Mr Abhisit last week to discuss 3G progress, including issues concerning funding sources, base stations and the bidding process.<end quote>

Cant help myself but I got the feeling we have to wait... and wait... and wait.... and wait................................ as usual!

[monty]

Ouch, TOT....

The company seemingly having the highest contention ratio's and worst customer service of all ISP's...

What's wrong with the private companies, who all have the budget ready but are waiting on licenses?

None wants to invest on the current frequencies, as on those they are stuck with a 70/30 revenue sharing deal with the government. No sense investing heaps if you have to give away 30% of revenue.

[Crushdepth]

Yay, another "3G is coming soon" announcement. With all the accelerating that's been going on for the last four or five years, it must be going pretty fast now.

[Plus]

I believe the correct language to use with nurses when you want something to be done fast is "stat". That might work, if Ranongrak the nurse received proper training.

The reason things are not going anywhere with TOT is that Ranongrak was shit scared to meet them in her four months in office, she was afraid they'd start talking technology and stuff, not bandages and needles.

The ICT mininster is brought to you courtesy of a very imporant coalition party. Not only she is a trained nurse, she is also a wife of a very powerful Korat politician. Two in one deal.

[dominique355]

ICT ministry to accelerate 3G

BANGKOK: -- Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva is pressing the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) minister to accelerate the development of third-generation mobile services in Thailand, because of its benefit to the economy.

ICT Minister Ranongrak Suwanchawee said she met with Mr Abhisit last week to discuss 3G progress, including issues concerning funding sources, base stations and the bidding process.

Announcements would be made over the next two weeks to enable the project owner, TOT Plc, to roll out new services by Dec 16 this year, she said.

The 3G projects should be funded by local financial institutions rather than from overseas, as local banks could offer lower interest rates.

Ms Ranongrak plans to consult the Finance Ministry over which financial institutions should provide the estimated 20 billion baht needed to fund the technology's development.

In the first phase, TOT would upgrade its 1900 megahertz (MHz) network's 500 base stations in Bangkok and surrounding provinces to 3G.

TOT would then start introducing new 3G services every three months to achieve its stated target of 4,700 base stations by the end of the next year.

-- Bangkok Post 2009-05-08

... and that planing is going to take another 6 months. But, hey, nobody ever told her that there is a Finance Ministry, so this is an obvious progress (considering she is a nurse).

I just thought CAT and TOT make billions every year from our mobile phones, so where is this money going?

[Crushdepth]

Surely even the most half-brained and self-serving politician could see the benefits of 3G to Thailand. Or at least the chance to line their own pockets through it? Thaksin (supposedly) isn't in the phone or satellite business anymore, so why are they still holding things up?

An interesting question might be: Who stands to lose from the introduction of 3G?

[monty]

An interesting question might be: Who stands to lose from the introduction of 3G?

The government! Not sure in the form of TOT or CAT, but I think the latter.

They are getting a cut of 30% of all revenue's under the current frequency allocations/concessions.

Lots of people are using GPRS/EDGE, so those 30% add up to a nice sum they get for doing/investing absolutely bugger all.

The 3G/2100 Mhz license will be another beast. It will be a one of payment, after which the operators are granted the license to use that band and deploy 3G on it, without having to share anything at all from the revenue 3G will generate.

It is safe to assume GPRS/Edge revenue will fall to a trickle once 3G is widely available.

My personal guess is that the 3G licenses will be granted shortly before the concessions on the current frequencies run out. That way all the revenue from GPRS/Edge will have come to them, and they'll still get the one off payment for the 3G licenses...

[monty]

Hmmm,

A little googling revealed that the current revenue share is only 25%, but it will increase to 30% in 2011. And is payable

The concessions will run out in 2018. (For Dtac anyway, not sure on AIS).

So I doubt they'll be able to hold of granting 3G licenses till 2018 (we'll have 7G probably by then ), but still, as long as the revenue flows in from 2.75G, I reckon they're in no great hurry.

They are not exactly consumer minded over here!

Bummer considering all neighboring countries have 3G (including Laos and Cambodia) save for Myanmar, where they do have it but only available to government officials.

[Plus]

GPRS/EDGE revenues are too small to be a reason for delay, and the delay is not the work of TOT, it's the National Telecommunications Commission that won't issue the licenses, dragging the process for years and years.

Why exactly are they are so slow is anyone's guess, perhaps they are pressured by TOT to wait until it's ready to compete with AIS and Dtac whose 3g systems are ready to run, but, generally, NTC and TOT are quite often at loggerheads on other issues, so it's difficult to say how much pulling power TOT has there.

I think it's just the all-pervading ignorance - none of them has enough knowledge to find a proper way to milk this cow, to make profits off 3g, to create a sustainable revenue stream. They are afraid that their chosen 3g solution would become obsolete before it brings any profits.

[Losangels]

What?? Thailand is even behind Myanmar in 3G ?

Isn't that a lot of loss of face for the authorities ?

[stumonster]

will they go straight to HSUPA or start with old HSDPA gear ?

who is going to roll out 812.16e ? Dell is already releasing laptops with WiMax built in.

[Plus]

These are the questions that throw NTC brains in stupor.

[DeeMaiDee]

Thailand already has 3G coverage nationwide....

Gold

Goons

Guns

[nikster]

It's just the usual ministry humor, I guess.

Even Abhisit seems more concerned with controlling the monies that 3G is going to provide than with actually getting something out there. Ugh. I mean, you are the prime minister, how about selling 3G licenses to the two, three companies who are just waiting to deploy all that equipment and who would bring all their own financing? Who would probably race each other in being first and roll it out next month. But no, couldn't possibly do that, much better to task the company that's providing the most failing internet service in the country, and tell them to use local banks so the progress can be slowed down even more.

So this is actually quite a bit worse than the usual "3G is just around the corner" news.

Then again, once CAT CDMA starts working again, there is already a 3G service in Thailand, and not too shabby, really. HSPA is theoretically faster but not in practice.

[Crushdepth]

I would love to use the fast CDMA service, but unfortunately it isn't available in Bangkok. We have 10 million people jammed into the one place here, and its the one place where that doesn't have the fast CDMA service? What the hel_l were they thinking!

The concessions will run out in 2018

Thanks Monty, I think I have my answer...

[bkk_mike]

Shouldn't this be 3G deployment, not development.

There's no 3G development happening here (would be fairly pointless given how far behind the rest of the world they are.)

Personally, I think they're delaying 3G because they know Thailand's internet bandwidth simply couldn't cope.

[Thanh-BKK]

Hi.

3G is alive and kicking in this country - if it weren't for two companies which are actually just one company to start playing well with each other!

CAT Telecom and Hutch.

The network (country-wide) is CAT CDMA. But service provided in the 25 central provinces is Hutch. Every Hutch flyer states on the back very clearly "CDMA by CAT".

The only thing stopping Bangkokians to enjoy their 3G is Hutch having their thumb on those provinces and deciding what's good for them - 3G is apparently not among those things. And to make sure that it stays this way Hutch locks their devices so a CAT SIM card can not be used, and CAT does likewise. A device brought in from China or Indonesia accepts both SIM cards and works flawlessly (tested it myself as i am a user of both providers).

Could this situation change..? Yesterday for the very first time i saw a shop at Central World that advertises for CAT CDMA. Here in Bangkok. Currently my CAT phone "roams on Hutch" for telephony to work, no data however..... i hope those "two" (which are actually one!) get their stuff sorted out so everyone can enjoy CDMA, it will be a boost for both of them.

Kind regards.....

Thanh

[monty]

Very true on the CAT/Hutch debacle.

Silliness in extreme

ACtually rather big parts of Pattaya and surroundings have been upgraded to EV-DO by Hutch.

However the only modems Hutch sells are rev.a, so stuck with higher latency and very slow uploads (sub 50 kbps).

Useful if you live here, but for traveling people rather useless. Even Bangkok where Hutch is present, no EV-DO signal is available apart from some very small area's.

[stumonster]

Monty - what sort of latency do you get with EVDO ?

in singapore HSDPA was giving about 200-300 ms

and WiMax was 300-400 ms - though they were not yet really using the 802.11e spec - this was via a stationary Navini ( now cisco ) modem

has anyone seen mobile data with latency in the <100 ms range ?

[monty]

On Hutch, within their network 300 - 400 msec.

Thaivisa server 400-600 msec.

USA 700-900 msec

Europe often over 1000 msec.

Apparently Rev.B reduces the internal latency, i.e. to the local gateway to around 100 msec. About 200-300 msec improvement over Rev.A...

The latency is slightly annoying, but the slow upload is the biggest drawback with rev.A. Sometimes as low as 20 kbps, almost impossible to upload anything biggish, or send an e-mail with a large attachment.

AFAIK, Rev.B has upload reliable speeds of over 200 kbps.

[nikster]

Monty I think you are confusing the - admittedly pretty confusing - names for EV-DO.

There was EV-DO 1x at 2.4Mbit/153kbps, and Rev. A with 3.1Mbit/1.8Mbps maximum down/uplink. CAT actual implementation is less of course. 1x (CCU-650) is the one with the really slow uplink, Rev. A (CCU-680) has a decent uplink.

Rev. B allows 4.8Mbit or even more according to some references - I don't know that CAT is planning on introducing it. Given that they don't give us the full Rev. A speed I wouldn't think so.

[Crushdepth]

Well I hope nobody was holding their breath. From the Bangkok Post:

3G licence delayed to next year

Issuing third-generation (3G) licences may be put off to the first quarter of next year by a revised schedule from the Office of the National Telecommunications Commission, which could also set back commercial 3G services to late 2010.

I think late 2010 is probably wildly optimistic as well. I think I started bitching about this in 2004. The only thing that has changed since then is that EDGE got decent coverage. So much for "ICT ministry to accelerate 3G"