ICT Ministry Aims To Provide Broadband To 90% Of People: Thailand

[webfact]

ICT ministry aims to provide broadband to 90% of people

THE NATION

BANGKOK: -- The Information and Communi-cations Technology Ministry expects to lay down broadband infrastructure that would cover 95 per cent of the country within the next eight years to improve the Kingdom's ICT competitiveness ranking.

ICT Minister Anudith Nakorntap said the ministry was pushing government agencies to invest in the nation's ICT infrastructure to support the Smart Thailand scheme and increase the ranking of the country in this area. Currently, Thailand is ranked 49th for ICT competitiveness among 70 digital economies globally. Among regional countries, Singapore and Malaysia are ranked higher at eighth and 36th respectively, he said yesterday at a seminar hosted by Krungthep Turakij newspaper.

Moreover, the service fees for IT are high in Thailand at about 6.5 per cent of the income of users, while users in developed countries pay only 1 per cent of their income for the same services.

He said the government intended to expand coverage of the high-speed Internet network. The fibre-optics network should cover about 80 per cent of the country within three years and the coverage will be expanded to 95 per cent by 2020.

The government is also working to convert its 800 services to digital, which will offer more convenience to people and save taxpayer money.

Thanachart Noomnonda, director of Software Park Thailand, said the country did not yet have an effective law to protect information on consumers. Consumers also do not use security software to protect themselves. He said he was concerned that the Thai software industry might not be able to keep up with other countries, but it was still not too late to take information security seriously.

-- The Nation 2012-03-03

[tragickingdom]

At least there is no longer a nurse leading the ICT department. as was under Abhisit the case, It is still not led by a professional however. So do not expect too much of ICT or any other government agency. There is mainly a lot of talk just as over 3G. As son as 3G is rolled out in Thailand completely it is obsolete. The same will happen with the broadband plans. On the bright side Thailand is doing much better than the UK or the US.

[miksguevara]

so its gonna become a hub?

[Pib]

I don't get too excited about these govt broadband announcements anymore as one seems to come out about every 6 months, the percentages and time frames of implementation are greatly different from the previous announcement, and the implementation time frame is usually long which means future governments which come and go every few years may not see the broadband modernization/expansion as a priority. Nice to read about, nice to dream about, but not something to bet the farm on.