Cat Telecom Eyes Wimax Deal With Mcot

[george]

CAT Telecom eyes WiMax deal with MCOT

BANGKOK: -- CAT Telecom is keen on using MCOT's 2.6GHz spectrum to offer WiMax broadband cellular services as part of its plan to develop new wireless businesses.

CAT's new CEO, Jirayuth Rungsrithong, said yesterday that CAT would talk seriously with the broadcaster's management on a possible tie-up to develop WiMax on the 2.6GHz spectrum.

CAT has already floated the idea to MCOT, he said.

However, the National Telecommunications Commission has earmarked only the 2.3GHz spectrum for WiMax, since other potential alternatives, such as the 2.5GHz spectrum, are now being used for broadcasting.

CAT's board on Wednesday appointed Jirayuth to a four-year term and will evaluate his performance every six months.

Jirayuth said that besides seeking new business, his other top priority is to finish merging CAT's CDMA 2000 1-x cellular network with Hutchison-CAT Wireless Multimedia's network by December.

Hutchison-CAT is a joint venture of CAT and Hong Kong telecom operator Hutchison Telecom.

CAT operates its own CDMA network in 51 provinces, while Hutchison-CAT markets the CDMA service under a contract with CAT on a separate CDMA network in 25 provinces.

Hutchison-CAT leases the CDMA network from BFKT, which is wholly owned by Hutchison Telecom.

Their combined network will strengthen the state enterprise's CDMA service offering and marketing.

Hutchison Telecom has already informed CAT of its intention to sell the BFKT network to CAT.

CAT's CDMA service, which has 350,000 subscribers, generated revenue of Bt618 million in the first eight months of this year, while Hutchison-CAT, which has 1.1 million subscribers, contributed about Bt400 million to CAT in the same period.

CAT's CDMA network in 51 provinces features the 3G wireless broadband technology, Jirayuth said.

CAT plans to upgrade the BFKT network to the technology after the merger, as it wants to evolve the merged network to 4G technology in a few years.

CAT targets total revenue of Bt52 billion this year after posting revenue of Bt31.9 billion in the first eight months, of which Bt12 billion was from its own operation and Bt19 billion from its concession holders.

-- The Nation 2009-09-18

[technocracy]

The NTC has earmarked just 2.3Ghz range to Wimax and people wonder why Thailand will never have a 1st world technology infrastructure!

The lack of foresight and planning is staggering! No country in the world has given the entire 2.5 AND 2.6Ghz spectrums to a bloody broadcaster! Even Laos has reserved these spectrums hence why there is 3 or 4 WiMax service providers.

Why say anything about 4G?!? They can't even plan for WiMax (~3.5g) - so just what happens if WiMax becomes the accepted 4G standard??

[phil2]

The NTC has earmarked just 2.3Ghz range to Wimax and people wonder why Thailand will never have a 1st world technology infrastructure!

The lack of foresight and planning is staggering! No country in the world has given the entire 2.5 AND 2.6Ghz spectrums to a bloody broadcaster! Even Laos has reserved these spectrums hence why there is 3 or 4 WiMax service providers.

Why say anything about 4G?!? They can't even plan for WiMax (~3.5g) - so just what happens if WiMax becomes the accepted 4G standard??

I quite agree with you. It's been all talk and no action for years. I wonder how and when there will even be 3G here not to talk of 3.5G or 4G for that matter. I believe it's all part of a game plan to keep people tied to True's and other epileptic super slow speed internet connections.

[animatic]

The NTC has earmarked just 2.3Ghz range to Wimax and people wonder why Thailand will never have a 1st world technology infrastructure!

The lack of foresight and planning is staggering! No country in the world has given the entire 2.5 AND 2.6Ghz spectrums to a bloody broadcaster! Even Laos has reserved these spectrums hence why there is 3 or 4 WiMax service providers.

Why say anything about 4G?!? They can't even plan for WiMax (~3.5g) - so just what happens if WiMax becomes the accepted 4G standard??

I quite agree with you. It's been all talk and no action for years. I wonder how and when there will even be 3G here not to talk of 3.5G or 4G for that matter. I believe it's all part of a game plan to keep people tied to True's and other epileptic super slow speed internet connections.

Csan't act if the people you are dealing with can't understand the issues.

Certainly there are several who understand band width and necessary spectrum issues,

But the political hacks and barterers are pretty much clueless and look at 'MONEY NOW' issues,

and the power thay can delegate.

Does ANYONE see looking ahead as a typical Thai trait?

[jpkh]

Wimax is dead already, Nokia and many other companies who developed Wimax has dropped it totally. They are aiming 4-5G networks.

in Finland and few other countries there is @450Mhz "wifi" netoworks that covers 95% on the nation. Ok it's only 1Mb network but still. It can be easily adopted to 470Mhz here in Thailand.

@450 radio cell has about 50km radius. They installed wimax also but just as a small pilots in small cities, tho no success...

[lowbo]

... still just a souped-up version of CDMA... which will be abandoned by mobile phone manufacturers when half of the worlds population obtain 3g capability. No 3g yet here in Thailand (that's another unresolved fiasco). As for 4g or 5g.... maybe in about 20 years when Korea, Japan, China and the rest of Asia has reached something in the 10g arena...

[asiawatcher]

As with all things here - the advisors advising have limited knowledge and do not understand thus the blind lead the blind. This is happening now in a totally unrelated deal on Tax Credits for the Thai Film Industry. A woman with no understanding and who has never done a tax credit funded film is advising the Government and Film Office. There are people here in Thailand who know Telco's inside out and ditto the film industry but Thai on Thai is how it has to be so the bribes can be covered.

Simple really - hang the sensibilities or common sense of looking to the future...

[MJo]

NSN just annouced yesterday that they have made world's first data call on LTE (Long Term Evolution or 4G) using software compliant to LTE standards (3GPP). This meaning it was first call on a system that can be taken to commercial use.

Next step is to continue trials and they estimate by early 2010 they are ready to start deploying for real and in volumes.

The speeds are staggering, but little or no hope that we will see it in Thailand as long as politicians continue to put their own benefit before the people.

[loong]

Why does the advance in technology take so long to get here?

Maybe lack of competition in a closed shop environment. If you are unhappy with your network supplier, what can you do in Thailand? You have 3 choices, Krap, Krappier and Krappiest! The trouble is that the Network that attains Krap status can deteriorate to Krappiest in a very short time. So really no choice.

Allow some decent foreign competition in, and a level playing field. Thai managed companies don't understand the concept of "Customer satisfaction", they only understand 'The customer should be happy with what we give them"

With no competition, the customer has no choice but to accept the poor service.

[iono]

As with all things here - the advisors advising have limited knowledge and do not understand thus the blind lead the blind. This is happening now in a totally unrelated deal on Tax Credits for the Thai Film Industry. A woman with no understanding and who has never done a tax credit funded film is advising the Government and Film Office. There are people here in Thailand who know Telco's inside out and ditto the film industry but Thai on Thai is how it has to be so the bribes can be covered.

Simple really - hang the sensibilities or common sense of looking to the future...

Sensibilities, now that is funny, putting Thailand and technology into the same sentence is like putting military and intelligence together in the same breath, totally mismanaged and doomed for failure....why not wise up and look at a successful model then mirror it or better yet hire their managers to implement and upgrade your systems and Fing learn how to Fing allocate bandwidth on your circuits, don't let the managers do it, let the technicians.....God my F'n head is going to explode dealing with this IPSTAR crap from TOT....sorry I'm about to flip.

[tracer0]

As with all things here - the advisors advising have limited knowledge and do not understand thus the blind lead the blind. This is happening now in a totally unrelated deal on Tax Credits for the Thai Film Industry. A woman with no understanding and who has never done a tax credit funded film is advising the Government and Film Office. There are people here in Thailand who know Telco's inside out and ditto the film industry but Thai on Thai is how it has to be so the bribes can be covered.

Simple really - hang the sensibilities or common sense of looking to the future...

Sensibilities, now that is funny, putting Thailand and technology into the same sentence is like putting military and intelligence together in the same breath, totally mismanaged and doomed for failure....why not wise up and look at a successful model then mirror it or better yet hire their managers to implement and upgrade your systems and Fing learn how to Fing allocate bandwidth on your circuits, don't let the managers do it, let the technicians.....God my F'n head is going to explode dealing with this IPSTAR crap from TOT....sorry I'm about to flip.

Sorry, I thought IPstar had been created by Taxin's company , did it end up in TOT? lousy system... Nothing but problems but partly due to installations etc... and the Satellite assuming its still the same one...

[hhiser]

555+

It will be just like my internet connection at home!

Slow and Unreliable!

Edited September 18, 2009 by hhiser

[selftaopath]

As with all things here - the advisors advising have limited knowledge and do not understand thus the blind lead the blind. This is happening now in a totally unrelated deal on Tax Credits for the Thai Film Industry. A woman with no understanding and who has never done a tax credit funded film is advising the Government and Film Office. There are people here in Thailand who know Telco's inside out and ditto the film industry but Thai on Thai is how it has to be so the bribes can be covered.

Simple really - hang the sensibilities or common sense of looking to the future...

Sensibilities, now that is funny, putting Thailand and technology into the same sentence is like putting military and intelligence together in the same breath, totally mismanaged and doomed for failure....why not wise up and look at a successful model then mirror it or better yet hire their managers to implement and upgrade your systems and Fing learn how to Fing allocate bandwidth on your circuits, don't let the managers do it, let the technicians.....God my F'n head is going to explode dealing with this IPSTAR crap from TOT....sorry I'm about to flip.

Some would think this is just another example of the immoral Thai rich seeking their own financial gain at the expense of the many. The goal so typical is for selfish gain. Corruption is at the root of most, if not all Thailand’s woes.

[slim]

Why does the advance in technology take so long to get here?

Maybe lack of competition in a closed shop environment. If you are unhappy with your network supplier, what can you do in Thailand? You have 3 choices, Krap, Krappier and Krappiest! The trouble is that the Network that attains Krap status can deteriorate to Krappiest in a very short time. So really no choice.

Allow some decent foreign competition in, and a level playing field. Thai managed companies don't understand the concept of "Customer satisfaction", they only understand 'The customer should be happy with what we give them"

With no competition, the customer has no choice but to accept the poor service.

Good point. I asked my wife to try and call TOT and ask why I had no internet AGAIN !

For the 5th time this week she couldn't get through only this time they'd changed the automatic answer. She told me that the message said that if I was experiencing internet difficulties it was because my connection was only 2mb and I needed to upgrade to 3mb !!!

On hearing this we went to CAT and booked a 3Mb installation with them and cancelled TOT.

My existing CAT CDMA connection has been quite good so I'm expecting to get possibly 12 months of decent sevice before the system comes to a grinding halt again through lack of bandwidth.

Thailand is a third world country masquerading as a modern one. Third world rail system, third world road infrastructure , third world telecommunications, third world attitutudes - sometimes I think the clocks stopped in Thailand in around 1950.

Edited September 18, 2009 by slim

[selftaopath]

Why does the advance in technology take so long to get here?

Maybe lack of competition in a closed shop environment. If you are unhappy with your network supplier, what can you do in Thailand? You have 3 choices, Krap, Krappier and Krappiest! The trouble is that the Network that attains Krap status can deteriorate to Krappiest in a very short time. So really no choice.

Allow some decent foreign competition in, and a level playing field. Thai managed companies don't understand the concept of "Customer satisfaction", they only understand 'The customer should be happy with what we give them"

With no competition, the customer has no choice but to accept the poor service.

And so Thailand remains "amazing" and perhaps a hug of backward movement or stagnation.

[AllanG]

Why does the advance in technology take so long to get here?

Maybe lack of competition in a closed shop environment. If you are unhappy with your network supplier, what can you do in Thailand? You have 3 choices, Krap, Krappier and Krappiest! The trouble is that the Network that attains Krap status can deteriorate to Krappiest in a very short time. So really no choice.

Allow some decent foreign competition in, and a level playing field. Thai managed companies don't understand the concept of "Customer satisfaction", they only understand 'The customer should be happy with what we give them"

With no competition, the customer has no choice but to accept the poor service.

Good point. I asked my wife to try and call TOT and ask why I had no internet AGAIN !

For the 5th time this week she couldn't get through only this time they'd changed the automatic answer. She told me that the message said that if I was experiencing internet difficulties it was because my connection was only 2mb and I needed to upgrade to 3mb !!!

On hearing this we went to CAT and booked a 3Mb installation with them and cancelled TOT.

My existing CAT CDMA connection has been quite good so I'm expecting to get possibly 12 months of decent sevice before the system comes to a grinding halt again through lack of bandwidth.

Thailand is a third world country masquerading as a modern one. Third world rail system, third world road infrastructure , third world telecommunications, third world attitutudes - sometimes I think the clocks stopped in Thailand in around 1950.

[Crushdepth]

Thailand is not going to get 3G until some snouts are removed from some troughs. After half a decade of waiting its time the top brass at the ministry were booted out.

[nikster]

You'd think Thailand was an incredibly corrupt 3rd world country....

oh, wait...

[Barin]

The NTC has earmarked just 2.3Ghz range to Wimax and people wonder why Thailand will never have a 1st world technology infrastructure!

The lack of foresight and planning is staggering! No country in the world has given the entire 2.5 AND 2.6Ghz spectrums to a bloody broadcaster! Even Laos has reserved these spectrums hence why there is 3 or 4 WiMax service providers.

Why say anything about 4G?!? They can't even plan for WiMax (~3.5g) - so just what happens if WiMax becomes the accepted 4G standard??

I quite agree with you. It's been all talk and no action for years. I wonder how and when there will even be 3G here not to talk of 3.5G or 4G for that matter. I believe it's all part of a game plan to keep people tied to True's and other epileptic super slow speed internet connections.

In fact 3G has been available in Thailand for 3 years already in the form of CDMA2000 1x EV (CAT CDMA network) but very few pople are aware of this unfortunately due to a very poor marketing strategy of CAT CDMA.

EVDO is a 3G technology used in CDMA networks. And Thailand is 3 years ahead of China, India, Indonesia. In fact Thailand was one of the first countries in South East Asia to launch EVDO service!

But very few people know about that...

Thailand has to learn from India and Indonesia where CDMA is extremely popular due to a clever marketing policy.

There is a great potential in CAT CDMA network. Now EVDO Revision A is up and running with theoretical download speed of 3.1 Mbps and upload speed of 1.8 Mbps.

This fully conforms to 3G standard.

This kind of speed will not be available in any GSM network in Thailand in the next 2 or 3 years...

[dudemeister]

Why does the advance in technology take so long to get here?

Maybe lack of competition in a closed shop environment. If you are unhappy with your network supplier, what can you do in Thailand? You have 3 choices, Krap, Krappier and Krappiest! The trouble is that the Network that attains Krap status can deteriorate to Krappiest in a very short time. So really no choice.

Allow some decent foreign competition in, and a level playing field. Thai managed companies don't understand the concept of "Customer satisfaction", they only understand 'The customer should be happy with what we give them"

With no competition, the customer has no choice but to accept the poor service.

And so Thailand remains "amazing" and perhaps a hug of backward movement or stagnation.

Land Of Stagnation.

[MJo]

In fact 3G has been available in Thailand for 3 years already in the form of CDMA2000 1x EV (CAT CDMA network) but very few pople are aware of this unfortunately due to a very poor marketing strategy of CAT CDMA.

EVDO is a 3G technology used in CDMA networks. And Thailand is 3 years ahead of China, India, Indonesia. In fact Thailand was one of the first countries in South East Asia to launch EVDO service!

But very few people know about that...

Thailand has to learn from India and Indonesia where CDMA is extremely popular due to a clever marketing policy.

There is a great potential in CAT CDMA network. Now EVDO Revision A is up and running with theoretical download speed of 3.1 Mbps and upload speed of 1.8 Mbps.

This fully conforms to 3G standard.

This kind of speed will not be available in any GSM network in Thailand in the next 2 or 3 years...

CDMA EVDO is old news. I'm afraid Thailand is not ahead of anyone with it as others have opted to go directly GSM based 3G and gone for so called 3.5G with HSPA (7+megs down) and all are now rolling out HSPA+ which will have downlinks 20+megs.

Sure there is evolutions of CDMA as well but it seems to be a losing technology since 10 years already. Lot of swaps happening all around the world when operators are forced to go GSM to keep their customers. In Thailand it does not help that there is no coverage in Bangkok.

Don't know about India but in Indonesia HSPA has been available couple of years or more now. I'f i remember correctly they started to implement 3G in 2006...

Thai operators are expanding their coverage under "trial networks" all the time. Problem is that they do not have frequencies (2100MHz) thus are using 850 and 900MHz etc where there is limited availability of handsets and modems. If the government (CAT & TOT) could finally agree how the kickbacks are divided between the government, CAT, TOT and who know's it will take around 6 months to see Bangkok and main cities fully covered with HSPA+ and a year or so to get real nationwide coverage. All operators have plans drawn and equipment orders negotiated. Only thing they need is licence from the government. Since 2003 the schedule has been "next quarter"...

[technocracy]

Wimax is dead already, Nokia and many other companies who developed Wimax has dropped it totally. They are aiming 4-5G networks.

in Finland and few other countries there is @450Mhz "wifi" netoworks that covers 95% on the nation. Ok it's only 1Mb network but still. It can be easily adopted to 470Mhz here in Thailand.

@450 radio cell has about 50km radius. They installed wimax also but just as a small pilots in small cities, tho no success...

Sorry my friend but you're talking out of you rear here. Nokia had very little to do with WiMax development sure they came up with some devices but that's about it. Whoever installed the WiMax obviously didn't have much of a clue on how to deploy it! WiMax is used globally with the largest deploy being in S.Korea. WiMax at 2.4-5Ghz with the right antennas has 20km radius and if Wimax in 900Mhz starts to become reality then it'll become even more useable.

I keep hearing about 4 or 5G networks however a full switch to 3G hasn't even take place even with god knows how many years of actually being live. All very reminiscent of the great Internet bandwidth rush and subsequent crash back in 2001/2 - constantly trying to push out more and more bandwidth but no customers to actually use it!

The last mile market place is so crowded that just like wi-fi if Intel finally start making it standard in there chipsets it'll soon become the standard that is just used because it's 'there' without the need for dongles and the rest.

[Barin]

I'm afraid Thailand is not ahead of anyone with it as others have opted to go directly GSM based 3G and gone for so called 3.5G with HSPA

We can not compare apples and oranges.

I was actively using HSDPA connection in Singapore.

The fact is that the actual download speed is much lower than expected, even lower than CAT CDMA.

Many people have been disappointed with the poor performance of HSDPA.

Currently CDMA with it's EV-DO data service "revision A" is much superior than the current implementation of HSDPA in any GSM network.

Take a look at the overwhelming success of CDMA in India and Indonesia!

CDMA technology can provide lower call rates with better overall performance as compared to GSM.

Edited September 18, 2009 by Barin

[nikster]

Barin - I don't think CDMA is better than HSPA - but it's not worse either, it's pretty similar.

I had a HSPA connection in Austria, it was relatively cheap, but capped to a 1Mbit/s download. So I never got more than 1Mbit but on the upside, I really got 1Mbit at all times, and under all circumstances - that connection was rock-solid. Websurfinng was faster than CAT CDMA.

I have had CAT CDMA for 3 years now (? - not sure actually, but I got it at a time when CAT did not advertise it at all, I had to go to the headquarters to sign up, and people there seemed quite surprised there was a customer. The guy who write down my data for the contract was the chief of CDMA for northern Thailand). It's pretty reasonable, apart from that period in the beginning of the year where it was useless for 4 months. But - TIT.

I don't think the technology can "provide lower call rates"?! But it can certainly hold its own vs GSM based 3G networks.

WiMax just seems dead to me, it's not being used anywhere and there were a few large scale attempts to deploy it in the USA which ended in spectacular failures. AFAIK Korea isn't using WiMax, they have their own 4G standard called WiBro.

[Nepal4me]

Why are we even talking about WiMAX? This is a technology that never flew. The big players Nortel etc have canceled their WiMAX development because it has become clear that implementing a WiMAX infrastructure is technically infeasible. WiMAX mobile and WiMAX fixed lines systems are not even compatible. This WiMAX is like a buzz word that they think will make them look clever and high tech when in fact WiMAX is dated, and effectively obsolete now.

[khaowong1]

The NTC has earmarked just 2.3Ghz range to Wimax and people wonder why Thailand will never have a 1st world technology infrastructure!

The lack of foresight and planning is staggering! No country in the world has given the entire 2.5 AND 2.6Ghz spectrums to a bloody broadcaster! Even Laos has reserved these spectrums hence why there is 3 or 4 WiMax service providers.

Why say anything about 4G?!? They can't even plan for WiMax (~3.5g) - so just what happens if WiMax becomes the accepted 4G standard??

I quite agree with you. It's been all talk and no action for years. I wonder how and when there will even be 3G here not to talk of 3.5G or 4G for that matter. I believe it's all part of a game plan to keep people tied to True's and other epileptic super slow speed internet connections.

Csan't act if the people you are dealing with can't understand the issues.

Certainly there are several who understand band width and necessary spectrum issues,

But the political hacks and barterers are pretty much clueless and look at 'MONEY NOW' issues,

and the power thay can delegate.

Does ANYONE see looking ahead as a typical Thai trait?

Anyone and I do mean Anyone, who has lived here in Thailand for any length of time, knows that looking ahead is DEFINITLY not a Thai trait...

[Barin]

Why are we even talking about WiMAX? This is a technology that never flew. The big players Nortel etc have canceled their WiMAX development because it has become clear that implementing a WiMAX infrastructure is technically infeasible. WiMAX mobile and WiMAX fixed lines systems are not even compatible. This WiMAX is like a buzz word that they think will make them look clever and high tech when in fact WiMAX is dated, and effectively obsolete now.

I don't think that WiMax or anything like that is really necessary as soon as we have CAT CDMA with its EV-DO "Revision A" data service at 3.1 Mbps right now.

It can be easily upgraded to EV-DO "Revision B" with typical download speed reaching 14.7 Mbps in the future.

There is a great potential in CAT CDMA network.

Unfortunately this potential has not been explored to full extent so far due to a poor management of CAT CDMA network...

3G is already here in Thailand for 3 years, but very few people know about that.

Forget about HSDPA in Thailand. Even if it is available after 2 or 3 years the cost will be much higher than the similar EV-DO conection from CAT CDMA.

[MJo]

I don't think that WiMax or anything like that is really necessary as soon as we have CAT CDMA with its EV-DO "Revision A" data service at 3.1 Mbps right now.

It can be easily upgraded to EV-DO "Revision B" with typical download speed reaching 14.7 Mbps in the future.

There is a great potential in CAT CDMA network.

Unfortunately this potential has not been explored to full extent so far due to a poor management of CAT CDMA network...

3G is already here in Thailand for 3 years, but very few people know about that.

Forget about HSDPA in Thailand. Even if it is available after 2 or 3 years the cost will be much higher than the similar EV-DO conection from CAT CDMA.

Is your day job selling CDMA equipment by any chance

I do not think technology has anything to do with pricing of services. If you are talking of cost of equipment, you can get GSM 3G equipment pretty much free from the chinese vendors nowdays in form of financing deals "order now and pay 5 years after your network is launched and making money". Latest news are that the swedes are starting to provide the same as their market share is rapidly decreasing. And deployment costs are pretty much the same regardless of technology. You still need to install the base stations and provide transmission...

Also you are talking EVDO rev A with theoretical 3megs down. In HSPA it is 7megs and HSPA+ it is 20megs. As in any network, CDMA or GSM, the capasity is shared with users conneted in the same cell. Also it is dependent on bandwith of their access and backbone transmission lines etc.

CDMA is just another technology and not so different from GSM 3G which is actually Wideband CDMA (WCDMA) in telecoms lingo. The fact is though that GSM based technology has been pushing CDMA out of market in last 10 years. I do not have the latest numbers but below subscriber counts are from Q3/2008 and as you see globally there is already more users for GSM 3G alone than CDMA which counts so called 2G and 3G CDMA technologies as one.

GSM (2G): 3 billion subsc

GSM (3G): 381 million subsc

CDMA (2G & 3G): 283 million subsc

TDMA: 10 million susc

Same International Wireless report shows following subsc nos for CAT and Hutch-CAT CDMA:

CAT CDMA: 3,630 subsc

HUTCH-CAT CDMA: 1,094,000 subsc

I believe the Hutch numbers include their voice customers, not sure if they sell EVDO data ?

You are correct that CAT has head start in thailand what comes to wireless data but as long as they do not have coverage in Bangkok their customer base is limited to the boonies and the operation is peanuts until they can build proper network covering all major cities, including BKK, and with capasity to support few million subsc. I might be wrong here but i would predict that there will be GSM 3G based proper data available in Bangkok before there is CAT EVDO. This is based on assumption that the government will issue the licences by end of next year.

In same time Thai GSM operators have combined subscriber base of 59 million that already have sim cards and can start using them for HSPA data at the same moment the network is launched for commercial use. Most operators have upgraded their switching equipment to support 3G and bigger ones have upgraded their base stations as well with modern equipment that they can be converted to 3G fairly easy.

So there is no need to redo the whole network, no need to re-do all customer contracts and distribute new sim cards, just start using and pay as you go or order monthly package from internet. And as said these 59 million subs are getting double the speed than EVDO providing there is sufficient capasity available in the network. Talk about potential in the market !

What comes to Indonesia, i used CDMA EVDO there for about a year and service was crap. Limited coverage and extremely bad network quality with constant downtime. Terminated my contract week after i found out my Telkomsel sim had HSPA available. Speeds douple, network not reliable but much better than CDMA and i bet by now they have managed to get their network stable.

[Barin]

I believe the Hutch numbers include their voice customers, not sure if they sell EVDO data ?

Hutch has been selling EV-DO data for 2 years already, but it is available in selected areas of Bangkok and Pattaya. They don't want to advertise this service very much until the whole Hutch are is covered with EV-DO. The fact is that Hutch CDMA network is very old so they need to replace the transceivers at every base station, not so fast.

[Barin]

I believe the Hutch numbers include their voice customers, not sure if they sell EVDO data ?

Hutch has been selling EV-DO data for 2 years already, but it is available in selected areas of Bangkok and Pattaya. They don't want to advertise this service very much until the whole Hutch service area is covered with EV-DO. The fact is that Hutch CDMA network is very old so they need to replace the transceivers at every base station, not so fast.