Cellular Operators Hope To Cash In On iPad: Thailand

[webfact]

Cellular operators hope to cash in on iPad

Sirivish Toomgum

The Nation

Thitipong Kiewpaisal, marketing executive for Advanced Info Service, shows the Nation application on the latest iPad model at Bangkok

BANGKOK: -- Three major cellular operators late this week launched the latest iPad tablet device to woo tech geeks.

Advanced Info Service (AIS), Total Access Communication (DTAC), and the TrueMove H 3G service brand of True Corp each was allocated about 1,000 units of the new iPad device by Apple in the first lot.

Pratthana Leelapanang, AIS vice president for the value-added service business, believes that the device will see hot sales.

Currently, about 5 million AIS customers out of 33 million own smart mobile devices. The number is expected to increase by another 2 million by the end of this year. Of the current 5 million smart mobile device users, about 10 per cent use tablets.

Recently, AIS estimated that 5 million smart phones will be sold in Thailand this year, while the number of tablet users is expected to exceed a million, up from about 500,000 last year.

DTAC senior vice president for device management Prapaprot Puprasert said the company is targeting sales of 40,000 to 50,000 units of the new iPad device this year. It got the first lot of less than 2,000 units from Apple.

DTAC has about 3.8 million smart-phone users, of which about 100,000 are tablet users.

According to Adhiruth Thothaveesansuk, TrueMove's managing director, TrueMove H 3G service has highlighted its nationwide 3G-high speed packet access (HSPA) network and vast WiFi network and content to woo new iPad users.

Real Move, which provides TrueMove H 3G service, currently has about 1 million mobile phone subscribers, while AIS and DTAC have about 2 million and 1.8 million 3G subscribers, respectively.

-- The Nation 2012-04-28

[lincsong]

I have been using the new 3G service with my iPad for the past month, and am a very satisfied customer! I live on Koh Tao, where even the TOT hard line internet service is very slow, and un-reliable, and I have journeyed North to Bangkok, and to the Southern most parts of Thailand, and the 3G service was working most of the time. It is generally pretty fast and reliable. I subscribe to the 10 GB service, because I send a lot of large files, and my two and a half year old Son like to surf YouTube videos (thankfully, mostly numbers and ABC's). I am very happy that Thailand is moving, if a little too slowly, into the future...

[bkk_mike]

Surely they should do something about the speed first...

Google ranked Thailand 48th out of 50 countries on wireless internet speed.

http://go.bloomberg.com/tech-blog/2012-04-19-whos-fastest-google-measures-web-speeds-around-the-world/

[Stjohnm]

I got the 64g Wi-Fi only model, I hardly ever used the 3G on my old iPad & as I can use my iPhone as a personal hotspot it didn't seem worth the extra ฿3k

Sent from my iPad using ThaiVisa app

[nikster]

I have been using the new 3G service with my iPad for the past month, and am a very satisfied customer! I live on Koh Tao, where even the TOT hard line internet service is very slow, and un-reliable, and I have journeyed North to Bangkok, and to the Southern most parts of Thailand, and the 3G service was working most of the time. It is generally pretty fast and reliable. I subscribe to the 10 GB service, because I send a lot of large files, and my two and a half year old Son like to surf YouTube videos (thankfully, mostly numbers and ABC's). I am very happy that Thailand is moving, if a little too slowly, into the future...

What provider? How do you manage your SIM from your iPad, or is it post-paid?

[nikster]

Surely they should do something about the speed first...

Google ranked Thailand 48th out of 50 countries on wireless internet speed.

http://go.bloomberg....ound-the-world/

I get consistent > 2Mbit down / 500k up on True-H, that's plenty fast, and compares well internationally (even though it's rather far removed from marketing claims of 40Mbps or whatever they're dreaming up).

Try it in the middle of San Francisco, if you get a signal at all. My experience in Europe is better, but also limited to 1Mbit download usually. The marketing materials are in la-la land - they usually use the theoretical maximum throughput, which even if available would be throttled.

LTE networks in the USA provide a real speed jump but they're only just now being rolled out in major metropolitan areas. These have a real world 10 - 20Mbit although it remains to be seen how well they'll cope once a significant proportion of subscribers have 4G phones. Right now there's only the iPad 3, and very few phones that can do LTE.

[lomatopo]

Surely they should do something about the speed first...

Google ranked Thailand 48th out of 50 countries on wireless internet speed.

http://go.bloomberg....ound-the-world/

This factoid is due mainly to the fact that 95+% of the mobile internet connections here are 2G, so as much an "economic" issue (consumers need to have the money for a 3G capable device and the monthly service fee) as an infrastructure issue. I think.