Anudith vows to boost Thailand's ICT rankings

[webfact]

Anudith vows to boost Thailand's ICT rankings
Usanee Mongkolporn
The Nation


ICT minister Anudith Nakornthap inaugurates the Thailand-ITU Pavilion last week. The pavilion was located in the Mobile Asia Expo 2013 fair held last week in China.

BANGKOK: -- The Information and Communications Technology Ministry has vowed to boost Thailand's ranking in the Networked Readiness Index (NRI) into the top 50 next year - up from 74th place this year through continued promotion of ICT initiatives.

It has wants to boost our ranking for e-government capacity, as scored on an index done by Japan's Waseda University to 15th place - from the present 20th plac,e before the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) comes into being.

Thailand's NRI ranking was announced at the World Economic Forum in Myanmar last month in the Global Information Technology Report 2013. The NRI measures preparedness of an economy to use ICT to boost competitiveness and well-being.

ICT minister Anudith Nakornthap said he was confident that the country's ICT related rankings would climb up as a result of many state ICT projects, such as Smart Thailand, which involves the deployment of ICT technology to enhance national competitiveness and bridge the digital divide. He made the remark at the opening of Thailand-ITU Pavilion in the Mobile Asia Expo 2013 fair in Shanghai, China last week.

Anudith, who has been ICT minister for one year and 10 months, said Thailand's overall broadband connections were expected get faster after the full utilisation of three 2.1GHz spectrum licences.

The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) granted 2.1GHz licences to Advanced Wireless Network (AWN), DTAC Trinet, and Real Future last December.

AWN has already launched a 3G service on its licence, while Real Future has launched both 3G and 4G services. DTAC TriNet will kick off its 3G service on the licence this month (July).

Anudith said the ministry was drafting a third e-government master plan for 2014 to 2019, focusing on strategies for all government units to further promote the Smart Thailand.

The ministry is waiting for the Cabinet to consider approving TOT and CAT Telecom proposals to continue using their spectra, from 900MHz to 1,800MHz and 2.3GHz to serve the Smart Thailand project.

It remains to be seen if Cabinet will approve both state agencies. Under the 2010 Frequency Allocation Law, all the state agencies have to return their spectra after a concession ends for the NBTC to reallocate - via an auction only. The NBTC already warned the Cabinet that approving the TOT and CAT proposals would be a breach of the frequency law.

Anudith last week also visited Huawei Technologies' office in Shanghai. The giant telecom network equipment vendor gave a presentation to show him wireless broadband technologies, including the Frequency Division Duplex (FDD)-Long term Evolution (LTE) technology for 4G service on 1,800MHz and the Time Division Duplexing (TDD)-LTE technology for 4G service on 2.3GHz.


-- The Nation 2013-07-01

[hellodolly]

Cambodia has 4G

He boasts about Thailand's coming 3G

"Anudith, who has been ICT minister for one year and 10 months, said Thailand's overall broadband connections were expected get faster after the full utilisation of three 2.1GHz spectrum licences."

He has had 22 months to get Thailand up to third world standards. Standards that are rapidly being abandoned by other nations in favor of higher standards.

I take it his policy is set low standards and brag about them.

"BANGKOK: -- The Information and Communications Technology Ministry has vowed to boost Thailand's ranking in the Networked Readiness Index (NRI) into the top 50 next year - up from 74th place this year through continued promotion of ICT initiatives.

Wow what a big leap but it is just a vow.

[Pib]

Me thinks the minister is just making a lot of canned, sounds good statements. Here's what the Global Information Technology 2013 report on page 22 says about Thailand. I think the opening sentence says it all.

Within ASEAN, Thailand (74th) leads a group of four members that do not leverage ICTs to their full
potential. Trailing by more than 70 and 40 places behind Singapore and Malaysia, respectively, Thailand exhibits a
number of weaknesses across the board. The highlights of its performance are the relative affordability of ICTs
(45th), in particular mobile telephony, and the quality of its business and innovation environment (52nd). However,
in this latter category as elsewhere, Thailand alternates good and poor assessments. Aside from mobile telephony,

other technologies remain relatively scant, translating to a middling 88th rank in the individual usage pillar. Also the

institutional environment does not seem to be particularly conducive (81st) and the government does not appear to

be particularly ardent at pushing the digital agenda nationwide (86th). In this dimension, the satisfactory ranks obtained

in both the Government Online Service Index (64th) and E-Participation Index (46th) conceal relatively

low marks (0.51 and 0.32, respectively, on a 0-to-1 scale).

[belg]

maybe in the top , 50 years from now

hie, lookie mie, i tekka pic

[rbrooks]

Unless he brings in 4G he is wasting his breath about improving with 3G.

[OzMick]

This in a country where Democrat MPs were charged for paying their dues by electronic transfer.