Ais Is Installing Fat Cables - 3g Coming?

[nikster]

Hi I am in the north in Pai, Mae Hong Son district. There are several trucks stringing big fat cables to all AIS base stations here.

I got the workers to confirm it's for AIS, but I was not able to get the exact nature of the cables out of them. They looked massive though so there must surely be some huge fiber optic cables hidden inside.

Which means either 3G or at least EDGE is coming. I can't imagine they would go through this kind of trouble just to install EDGE simply because I think that AIS is already testing EDGE and already knows that while they can make some money from it, it's not that much. How many geeks with laptops run around in the mountains near burma? Exactly.

These fat cables spell "massive expansion plans" to me...

It can't be power because that's already there. It can't be for the normal phone service because that's already very good and much better than the competitors up here.

So... 3G/UMTS it must be No idea what the business plan will be, but I am sure they will sell some fast data cards along with mobile TV or whatever they think will make tons of cash through its mass-appeal...

[Lannig]

Hi I am in the north in Pai, Mae Hong Son district. There are several trucks stringing big fat cables to all AIS base stations here.

I got the workers to confirm it's for AIS, but I was not able to get the exact nature of the cables out of them. They looked massive though so there must surely be some huge fiber optic cables hidden inside.

Which means either 3G or at least EDGE is coming.

Wouldn't this be needed to increase the capacity of their mesh to provide decent telephony services to their clients first?

[nikster]

Hi I am in the north in Pai, Mae Hong Son district. There are several trucks stringing big fat cables to all AIS base stations here.

I got the workers to confirm it's for AIS, but I was not able to get the exact nature of the cables out of them. They looked massive though so there must surely be some huge fiber optic cables hidden inside.

Which means either 3G or at least EDGE is coming.

Wouldn't this be needed to increase the capacity of their mesh to provide decent telephony services to their clients first?

From what I understand about this stuff, no. The number of calls a single GSM cell (tower) can handle is surprisingly low so I don't think you would need to update the _cables_ when trying to make it handle more. More likely you would either need to update the central servers or put more cells in.

3G would also take care of that (much more capacity for voice calls) but I'd wager that that's not a commercially viable reason to roll out 3G.

I wouldn't know what is, really - I just want the fast data

[nikster]

I took a close look at the cable today - there is a fat fiber line inside, about 5mm of fiber.

Of course, it could just be that Temasek is improving the network. I have read about them, they have a very good reputation as a tech / telecoms company. They are known to put in solid technology. In that sense the fiber may just be standard issue so they don't have to rewire everything when 3G, 4G, 5G come.

I mean, a fiber strand like this must have a capacity of ... a LOT. Like, 100Gbit or something.

Are there no fiber / cell network experts in this forum?

[ozymandious]

Here is good Q&A form the Phuketgazette online in phuket RE 3G...at least in Phuket

Link to Original artical: Link

3G and WiFi in Phuket

After being away from Phuket for a few years, I am coming back soon for three weeks. While I am in Phuket I will need near-constant access to the Internet via my BlackBerry PDA phone and my laptop with 3G [third-generation] data card.

Do any networks over there support 3G, or is there a reliable wireless network in Phuket that is unfiltered and supports VPN (Virtual Private Network)?

I am a network administrator for a firm of architects, and we are starting design work for the 2012 Olympic Games in London. I will need to connect to our servers via Remote Desktop to monitor and do preventative maintenance very often.

Thanks for your help.

Wednesday, August 9, 2006 Guy Wells, London, UK.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Phuket is way behind the times with 3G telephone systems. As you probably already know, 3G is advanced mobile-phone technology at eye-popping high speed.

A 3G mobile phone can download songs in seconds. A 3G PDA can surf websites at ADSL speeds. Plug a 3G card, also called an “Air Card”, into your computer and you have very fast wireless ADSL that’s accessible anywhere within 3G phone coverage.

Shin Corporation was slated to spend 40 billion baht on upgrading its mobile phone system to 3G over three years. Or at least that was the plan until Shin was acquired by Temasek Holdings, a company wholly owned by the Singaporean government.

Just a few weeks ago, Thailand’s National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) put new operating licenses “on hold” until it could sort out the mess surrounding Temasek Holdings, its affiliate Kularb Kaew, ownership percentages, and the like.

The issue is whether foreigners – who can’t own a square centimeter of land in this country – can own Thailand’s largest telecommunication backbone.

With the caretaker government’s NTC preoccupied, and new regulations impossible until the current political impasse is resolved and there is a real government in place, it seems unlikely that any progress will be made on 3G services in Bangkok for quite some time. You might want to check back after the Games in 2012.

In Phuket, CAT is experimenting with a specific kind of 3G known colloquially as CDMA2000 1XEV-DO – commonly called “dee-oh” (click here for details).

CAT had one tower in Kata running DO for a while. I haven’t heard any other news, so it’s likely that CAT is mired in the same NTC bog as everybody else.

CAT had plans to install 35 DO towers on Phuket, effectively covering about 90% of the island’s population. The original plan called for unlimited 2.4 Mbps service at 990 baht a month. If that plan ever comes true, the entire nature of Internet access on Phuket will change overnight – and a lot of people will be selling their old 2G mobile phones, cheap.

There are reliable WiFi hotspots all over Phuket. Some of them, including the one in my Sandwich Shoppe in Patong, are both fast and free.

Although every Internet Service Provider in Thailand is required to block certain sites, I haven’t heard of any problems establishing VPN connections. There may be some filtering with the major commercial WiFi providers, but the free WiFi hotspots shouldn’t have any problems at all.

In short, welcome back to Phuket and remember – a slow line here is better than a fast line anywhere else. ”

Wednesday, August 9, 2006 Woody Leonhard, Phuket Gazette computer columnist and author of several books in the computer feild

[nikster]

Thanks, that's really good info!

[Crushdepth]

Phuket is way behind the times with 3G telephone systems. As you probably already know, 3G is advanced mobile-phone technology at eye-popping high speed.

A 3G mobile phone can download songs in seconds. A 3G PDA can surf websites at ADSL speeds. Plug a 3G card, also called an “Air Card”, into your computer and you have very fast wireless ADSL that’s accessible anywhere within 3G phone coverage.

This is really wrong. 3G was all hype, I have 3G wireless and eye popping it isn't - on average I get about 100KB/s - about twice a dial up modem. Air cards operate at the same speed, ie. dog slow compared to ADSL.

There is a rumour that CAT will soon offer fast CDMA, which is considerably better - but I wouldn't hold my breath.

Fast wireless data = 4G. We will be waiting quite some time yet