Thailand Will Have 80-85 Percent High-Speed Internet Coverage In Four Years

[webfact]

Thailand will have 80-85 percent high-speed internet coverage in four years

BANGKOK, Sept 5 -The Thai government plans to develop high speed internet service to help facilitate government services in various fields and aims to extend internet networks to cover 80-85 per cent of the country within the next four years, according to Minister of Information and Communication Technology Group Capt Anudith Nakornthap.

In a seminar on a new era of government services on high speed internet attended by heads of government agencies from all ministries, Capt Anudith said that the public would begin to make use of the new government services within one year.

He said that his ministry would meet the concerned agencies including both the ministries of public health and interior on data base development and applications in two months and after that pilot provinces would be selected to upgrade government services using high speed internet.

The minister said four fields of government services would be targeted: e-Government, e-Health, e-Education and e-Agriculture.

E-Government includes issuance of identification cards; e-Education covers education through high speed internet network; and e-Health includes medical consultations via high speed internet network, he said.

The minister said initially, that provinces having readiness to apply the high speed internet network would start providing services via internet. Pilot provinces would be named in two months and all 4-E sectors would take form and be working within one year, before the services extend nationwide in four years.

According to the ministry, the internet network currently covers only 37 per cent of the country and the ministry planned to expand it to cover 80 per cent of all subdistricts by 2012 and 80-85 per cent by 2015. (MCOT online news)

-- TNA 2011-09-05

[MYKTHEMIN]

<deleted> !!!! 4 years!!! this is just foocking pathetic!!

[ExpatOilWorker]

<deleted> !!!! 4 years!!! this is just foocking pathetic!!

What do you mean? That is practically tomorrow! We might even get 3G within that time frame. Miracles do happen...in Thailand.

[Pib]

Keep in mind that according to other govt releases/news articles I read on this, the government's definition of "high speed coverage" means access to at least a "2Mb" ADSL line or 2Mb Wifi circuit. I don't know if I would consider 2Mb as high speed in today's world.

I still remember about seven years ago I came to Thailand on a business trip, stayed in a 5 star hotel in the central Bangkok, and that hotel's "high speed" internet to each room (proudly displayed in the room literature) was 56Kb...I did use it and it was indeed 56Kb "high speed" internet....downloading my email which was heavy with attachments/power point presentations took hours...but that gave me plenty of time to bar hop as my "high speed" internet connection did its thing.

[PattayaParent]

^that was my first thought on reading the headline.

The 'high-speed' will be today's high speed figures that will be obsolete in most of the rest of the world in 4 years time as they will continually play 'catch-up' and not invest in future proofing infrastructure.

[Penkoprod]

It always amuses me when i see an article such as this

Especially in a country where the same figure of 80-85 percent of the population still crap into a hole in the ground, and farm with buffalos, and not tractors, lol

And where, apart from a few tourist places you feel like you have stumbled back in time, to the 19th century

Where is the infrastructure to deliver this Technology to the masses?

555555!!!!!

Penkoprod

[xqzme]

KIRZ provide 100MB/s high speed internet all around Thailand right now!

[Wavefloater]

Sounds like another "HUB" opportunity to me.

They can be the hub of outdated telecommunications.

[tragickingdom]

Let's hope Abhisit does not ask them to follow procedures. Abhisit and his army friends left Thailand in the dark ages. First thing that needs to be done is to sack the entire TOT and CAT management. Cambodia is starting 4G trials. Thailand might be starting 3G trials. That is the difference today.

[Sydebolle]

Well, why bother. I keep on getting the following bouncing message from Thailand's biggest private bank throughout the entire day. Trying to call 1333 results in the same.

Lets be fair; at least the lying is balanced all over the place and as long as customers dont kick <deleted> then nothing will happen. And what is this little crowd of Aliens nagging about everything compared to 70 million Thais who are apparently happy with absolutely everything...

[bkk_mike]

Of course 70m Thais aren't complaining. You need to have used proper high speed internet before you know what you're missing.

[Rosco911]

Come on guys its good to see amazing Thailand advancements,

I see TOT in Chaing Mai offer a 10Mb fiber optic line at a mere 22,600.00 THB (452.00 UKP) per month. Plus comes with a free ADSL backup line. I wonder whats that for ha ha.

Virgin do the same thing in the UK only with 100Mb line priced at 2000.00 (40.00 UKP). 50Mb priced at 1000 THB.

Miracle Thailand

[daiwill60]

Recently and reluctantly got TOT into the house in Mahasarakham. Initially I asked for their 9Mb package, which they duly installed, only prob was the guy who installed it told the missus that we would be just as well of having the 6Mb package and he would sort out that out when he got back to the depot and there would be a couple of days delay till we went down to the 6 Mb speeds. Everything was fine initially, I was running about 7 Mb, until about 2 weeks ago when i was having no luck at all getting onto Fbook and oddly enough You Tube, when i tried to open videos posted by friends on Fb that had a link to Youtube i was also having no luck. BBC website was fine and opening videos and so was every other website so it would seem. I did speed tests which appeared ok until a friend advised i do a speed test to a server in California , Woah! speeds down to less than 1 Mb , and fluctuating any where between this and 5 Mb if i coneected with server in Thailand or Laos. The odd thing is that in the hotel across the road were the wife's sister owns, they are on a 3Mb speed with TOT and have no problem at all getting on Fb or You tube and neither do I when i am at work , so really do not understand exactly what is going on, except that the domestic supplied internet in Thailand Sucks at best.

[plumeria]

Hey! Maybe the Cambodia system will reach as far as Bangkok soon! That would stimulate some competition from local providers.

Talking about five years in the same breath as anything IT is usually not a very good idea.

Seoul Internet was blinding fast compared to Thailand.

Using a connection shared with many, many others a 350MB download took a few minutes (nine?)

[Pib]

Well, why bother. I keep on getting the following bouncing message from Thailand's biggest private bank throughout the entire day. Trying to call 1333 results in the same.

Strange...Ive logged onto Bangkok Bank iBanking several times today. Checked it again just before posting this and no problem. I'm on True in Bangkok.

[Pib]

Let's hope Abhisit does not ask them to follow procedures. Abhisit and his army friends left Thailand in the dark ages. First thing that needs to be done is to sack the entire TOT and CAT management. Cambodia is starting 4G trials. Thailand might be starting 3G trials. That is the difference today.

Unfortunately, sacking the entire TOT and CAT management is not possible unless TOT and CAT management approve....a Catch 22 they were able to get institutionalized over the years. Plus, I think they have veto power over any IT initiative the govt wants to do....no nice profit slice with union protection included in the initiative then it's dead on arrival and/or tied up in courts for years upon years. Long Live TOT and CAT!

[ricardofel]

WOW...isn't that just fantastic. Behind in every other high tech venue...it's not surprising.

[Gary A]

This entire scheme stinks. If CAT were interested in providing decent service, they would have purchased Hutchinson and instantly provided relatively high speed service to the entire country. It never made any sense for CAT to have northern and southern Thailand while Hutchinson had the middle part of the country. CAT was simply not interested in providing service or they would have at the least had a deal with Hutchinson to be able to consolidate CDMA EVDO and share equipment.

[ToffeEFCpower]

This article not worth reading. Come back in 4 years and give us a progress report.

[swerver]

Well, why bother. I keep on getting the following bouncing message from Thailand's biggest private bank throughout the entire day. Trying to call 1333 results in the same.

Lets be fair; at least the lying is balanced all over the place and as long as customers dont kick <deleted> then nothing will happen. And what is this little crowd of Aliens nagging about everything compared to 70 million Thais who are apparently happy with absolutely everything...

Yes, Yes, HS Internet What does this really mean?

To me it is like the Hiway and the Byway for motor vehicles.

I live close to RR-7 and am able to hop right on and there I go at 120KPH. Same my computer is connected with iPstar allowing me at HS to go from my computer to the ISP entrance (outdated equipment) and from there on it is WAITING TO CONNECT in the Taskbar.

And in my case sometimes I sit waiting for several minutes, and at times as long as just throwing in the towel and go do something else on my computer.

I get the same as you with the bank and it isn’t the bank’s computer service, it is the ISP who sits between you, and me also, and the bank whose ISP Server equipment is so outdated that it cannot handle the load.

You see this ISP Server equipment was fine when it was installed years ago when it was just plain vanilla internet service. But since then companies, the bank including, have hung all sort of multi color advertizing garbage on their emails, which is by most shop till you drop people okay but the ISP hasn’t bought newer equipment to handle this overloaded by now with multi color advertizing garbage that travels the internet. Typical Thai mentality, ones you have bought it and installed you can forget about it until the end of the world. PM (that stands for Preventative Maintenance) is an unknown in Thai language. The ISP updating equipment to take care of additional services having been sold, never heard about such a thing the Thai says. I bought it, installed it, and from there on out it is just rake in the money. Seventy million Thais are happy with that mentality, so what is wrong with you Farangs. As Yingluck said when she was shaking the bushes for her present job, farangs are no good, they don’t speak Thai. Maybe she and Big Brother have in mind to make Thai the International business-, aviation- and seafaring-language. Leave it up to Big Brother who is traveling the world in his Bombardier Jet right now to promote Thailand, first stop was Japan, next on the list is UK and Germany both of which have let it be know he is welcome as a fugitive and will not arrest him. Envying all you farangs who do not have an Albatross hanging around their neck in Thailand, I don’t mean a demimondaine and her extended family, I mean bricks and mortar. LOL in LOS

[dominique355]

By the time we finally will have true high-speed Internet, it will be useless because by then the MICT (Ministry of Internet Censure in Thailand) will have successfully blocked all websites.

[dominique355]

Let's hope Abhisit does not ask them to follow procedures. Abhisit and his army friends left Thailand in the dark ages. First thing that needs to be done is to sack the entire TOT and CAT management. Cambodia is starting 4G trials. Thailand might be starting 3G trials. That is the difference today.

Unfortunately, sacking the entire TOT and CAT management is not possible unless TOT and CAT management approve....a Catch 22 they were able to get institutionalized over the years. Plus, I think they have veto power over any IT initiative the govt wants to do....no nice profit slice with union protection included in the initiative then it's dead on arrival and/or tied up in courts for years upon years. Long Live TOT and CAT!

Exactly. Remember when CAT sued the Government because they were under the threat that someone will finally come up with a real 3G network, making their deal with True (in the pipeline already at that time) to be obsolete. They would have lost a lot of money, so they sued the Government over a technicality, (NBT instead of NBTC). Really service minded, these people at CAT!

[tombkk]

Keep in mind that according to other govt releases/news articles I read on this, the government's definition of "high speed coverage" means access to at least a "2Mb" ADSL line or 2Mb Wifi circuit. I don't know if I would consider 2Mb as high speed in today's world.

I still remember about seven years ago I came to Thailand on a business trip, stayed in a 5 star hotel in the central Bangkok, and that hotel's "high speed" internet to each room (proudly displayed in the room literature) was 56Kb...I did use it and it was indeed 56Kb "high speed" internet....downloading my email which was heavy with attachments/power point presentations took hours...but that gave me plenty of time to bar hop as my "high speed" internet connection did its thing.

Seven years ago.... Today I have 12Mbps internet at home on a shared line, which is actually 9.83 Mbps right now. And that's not an exception. My friends in Germany envy me!

Youtube videos are no problem, and I have dismissed all these "speed enhancers" from my computer. It turned out faster to download directly.

OK, I admit: I am in Bangkok. Experiences in "up-country" provinces may differ.

[tombkk]

Hey! Maybe the Cambodia system will reach as far as Bangkok soon! That would stimulate some competition from local providers.

Talking about five years in the same breath as anything IT is usually not a very good idea.

Seoul Internet was blinding fast compared to Thailand.

Using a connection shared with many, many others a 350MB download took a few minutes (nine?)

Cambodia is still far behind in internet speed (I go there almost every month) but it is improving. Give it a year or two and it will catch up with Thailand, I guess.

Seoul is the world leader. It will be blinding fast compared to anywhere, including the US or Europe.

[scotbeve]

Recently and reluctantly got TOT into the house in Mahasarakham. Initially I asked for their 9Mb package, which they duly installed, only prob was the guy who installed it told the missus that we would be just as well of having the 6Mb package and he would sort out that out when he got back to the depot and there would be a couple of days delay till we went down to the 6 Mb speeds. Everything was fine initially, I was running about 7 Mb, until about 2 weeks ago when i was having no luck at all getting onto Fbook and oddly enough You Tube, when i tried to open videos posted by friends on Fb that had a link to Youtube i was also having no luck. BBC website was fine and opening videos and so was every other website so it would seem. I did speed tests which appeared ok until a friend advised i do a speed test to a server in California , Woah! speeds down to less than 1 Mb , and fluctuating any where between this and 5 Mb if i coneected with server in Thailand or Laos. The odd thing is that in the hotel across the road were the wife's sister owns, they are on a 3Mb speed with TOT and have no problem at all getting on Fb or You tube and neither do I when i am at work , so really do not understand exactly what is going on, except that the domestic supplied internet in Thailand Sucks at best.

I had problems all time with TOT ADSL. I was testing speeds constantly and capturing the speed test. I would then print it out and show the TOT area manager and ask to have the incoming line "shot" (tested) from the exchange to my computer.. After a few months... he finally conceded to the fact that my line in particular had a problem. The techs came and disconnected the earth wire from the line!!!!! Amazing!!! So, knowing the thunderstorms we have in the area sometimes, I had to put on a lightening suppressor as not to blow any equipment during any sheet lightening..... Anyhow, the TOT line did in fact work a bit better BUT come around 3:00 pm, weekends, or any school holidays (the peak hours / children playing online games...) - it was absolutely useless. I got fed up with it and switched over to 3BB 6M. Better but not perfect during peak times.

[Pib]

Keep in mind that according to other govt releases/news articles I read on this, the government's definition of "high speed coverage" means access to at least a "2Mb" ADSL line or 2Mb Wifi circuit. I don't know if I would consider 2Mb as high speed in today's world.

I still remember about seven years ago I came to Thailand on a business trip, stayed in a 5 star hotel in the central Bangkok, and that hotel's "high speed" internet to each room (proudly displayed in the room literature) was 56Kb...I did use it and it was indeed 56Kb "high speed" internet....downloading my email which was heavy with attachments/power point presentations took hours...but that gave me plenty of time to bar hop as my "high speed" internet connection did its thing.

Seven years ago.... Today I have 12Mbps internet at home on a shared line, which is actually 9.83 Mbps right now. And that's not an exception. My friends in Germany envy me!

Youtube videos are no problem, and I have dismissed all these "speed enhancers" from my computer. It turned out faster to download directly.

OK, I admit: I am in Bangkok. Experiences in "up-country" provinces may differ.

Yeap, I'm in Bangkok too. Only three months ago did True cable TV & internet reach my western Bangkok moobaan...now that I have a 20Mb cable plan internet surfing and video streaming is not an issue. But up until 3 months ago I was a captive audience of "only TOT ADSL/phone lines" allowed in the moobaan so I had been restricted to first TOT's 2Mb ADSL plan, TOT upgraded a little bit a year later and I was able to upgrade to their 4Mb plan, and then about a year later they upgraded the moobaan to 6Mb capability....and TOT's max capability to my moobaan is still limited to 6Mb after almost two years of reaching that speed level. The moobaan across the canal is still limited to TOT 4Mb according to a TOT Tech I talked to in the moobaan the other day. But to upgrade to higher speed ADSL plans the TOT tech said they would need to upgrade DSLAMs and other major equipment in their central office/station about 2Km away, which once again ain't cheap. I wouldn't be surprised that the reason our moobaan went from 2Mb to 4Mb and then to 6Mb is because TOT upgraded some other central station to say 15Mb ADSL capability and then moved the slower/less capable internet equipment/DSLAMs in that station to the central station supporting our moobaan.

One of the TOT techs that service our moobaan talks English pretty good and every few months when I see him I ask him what is TOT's current internet speed capability to the moobaan. He has mentioned TOT fiber is fast but since it so expensive to initially install in an area, it's only being initially installed in/to high population, highrise condo buidlings, and/or business environments....understandable as you get faster payback that way....and he said I shouldn't be holding my breath for TOT fiber to reach my moobaan especially since True cable internet is now in my moobaan. So, I guess I'm now a captive audience of True cable internet if I want any speed greater than 6Mb. But it sure would be nice to have a choice in your high speed internet providers....oh well.

Now that True cable internet is in our moobaan with 7Mb to 100Mb capability (but not in the moobaan across the canal), I expect TOT will be even slower in upgrading its ADSL speeds to the moobaan and quite few people have switched to one of the True cable interent plans which are faster and/or cheaper than ADSL:plans. And True really ain't setting no speed records in their expansion of their cable TV/internet capability...that is pretty much limited to certain high population cities in certain areas of those cities since installing cable TV/internet lines ain't cheap. It took True approx 6 months to complete the cable trunk line installation in my approx 750 home moobaan before they began individual home hookups, but I will admit they had quite a few little sois in my moobaan to string trunk line on....and during those 6 months of installation there where at least 2 months where installation activity just stopped...one True contractor said they ran out of installation parts and were also awaiting some govt approval to proceed to the next stage of installation.

Just like you said, some of us Bangkok folks and several other high population areas in the country have pretty descent access to high speed internet, but it's the folks out in the provinces and small towns where the internet speed and reliablility is not much better than 56Kb dial-up. Thailand has a long way to go to provide high speed internet access across the country; they are making progress but it seems to be slow progress. And it's not so much that only maybe a 4Mb ADSL capability may be available to an area, as that speed is really be fine for general interneting, emailing, and even video streaming "IF, repeat IF, you could get that speed reliably and consistently (smooth data flow versus on & off data flow) to Thailand and international web sites but on the whole on many Thai ISP internet plans you can't, especially to international web sites."

[khaowong1]

^that was my first thought on reading the headline.

The 'high-speed' will be today's high speed figures that will be obsolete in most of the rest of the world in 4 years time as they will continually play 'catch-up' and not invest in future proofing infrastructure.

True true. I remember back 4 or 5 years ago they were talking about the same thing.. "We will have high-speed internet in 4 or 5 years. Thailand will always be behind the rest of the world in most things, except for maybe Ethopia or other places in Africa.

[tombkk]

^that was my first thought on reading the headline.

The 'high-speed' will be today's high speed figures that will be obsolete in most of the rest of the world in 4 years time as they will continually play 'catch-up' and not invest in future proofing infrastructure.

True true. I remember back 4 or 5 years ago they were talking about the same thing.. "We will have high-speed internet in 4 or 5 years. Thailand will always be behind the rest of the world in most things, except for maybe Ethopia or other places in Africa.

I just came back from Europe last month. You'll be surprised that many of my friends envied my internet speed over here.

I will assume that you did not do any research before posting your opinion. Kindly confirm.

[billd766]

Dear Abby

I have been waiting since 2003 for just an ordinary home phone line to come 5 km.

This year it has finally made it to just 700 metres away. A few of us want a line but TOT says that they need to put 15 lines in to make it pay and they cannot guarantee an ADSL connection either.

In the same period AIS has put in 3 cell sites and DTAC has added 1.

I am 67 now.

Do you think that I will get a high speed internet connection in my lifetime?

[Pib]

Dear Abby

I have been waiting since 2003 for just an ordinary home phone line to come 5 km.

This year it has finally made it to just 700 metres away. A few of us want a line but TOT says that they need to put 15 lines in to make it pay and they cannot guarantee an ADSL connection either.

In the same period AIS has put in 3 cell sites and DTAC has added 1.

I am 67 now.

Do you think that I will get a high speed internet connection in my lifetime?

Sure, I think the average lifetime for a male (assuming you are male) is somewhere in the 84 area....so, give the govt/TOT another 4 years and on your 71nd birthday your gift will be a TOT landline for phone and internet service although your interent service may be limited to 2Mb with 500Kb speed (on a good day) to international web sites....then your golden years can really begin courtesy of TOT.