Hui Weng Cheong, left, the incoming deputy president of Advanced Info Service Plc, exchanges greetings with fellow executives Somprasong Boonyachai, centre, and Wichian Mektrakarn at the press conference yesterday.

AIS chief executive Somprasong Boonyachai said Hui's experience working for the regional giant Singapore Telecom (SingTel) made him ideally suited to the task. SingTel is more technologically advanced than AIS, he said. Somprasong said that as a result of the AIS's new focus, non-voice services were expected to account for 10 per cent of the company's service revenue this year, up from 7 per cent last year.

"Having a large network is not enough, you also need to develop special services for customers," he said during a press conference to officially announce  Hui's appointment, as well as Wichian Mektrakarn's appointment as president. Somprasong said non-voice services accounted for as much as 24 per cent of SingTel's revenue.

Hui said yesterday he would capitalise on his experience in Singapore's highly competitive telecom market to improve AIS's business.

He added that the Thai market was also highly competitive and that customers here were very demanding. However, he said he realised services that had proved successful in Singapore might not be a big hit in Thailand.

He said the big challenge would be to develop non-voice services that meet a specific demand for the right group of customers.

Hui is currently the vice president for consumer products of SingTel, a 20-per-cent strategic partner with AIS. He will assume his new post - in charge of marketing operations at AIS - on December 1.

Hui, who is also an AIS director, is no stranger to the Thai market. He was managing director of the now-defunct Advanced Paging, which provided services under the Phonelink brand, from 1995 until 1998.

AIS's new president, Wichian, said he would focus on balancing marketing efforts and network quality to restore AIS's image as a provider of high-quality services.

AIS will spend about US$755 million (Bt28.3 billion) to expand and upgrade its network this year.

The price war in the second quarter caused congestion in the networks of major cellular operators, leading to complaints by subscribers.

"The network quality will improve steadily. We are confident that we will regain the confidence of our customers. Our network capacity can serve up to 20 million subscribers this year," Wichian said.

AIS has more than 17 million customers.

In a related matter, Somprasong said AIS was ready roll out third-generation (3G) wireless broadband services once the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) awards the company a licence.

3G technology will allow cellular operators to offer bandwidth-consuming services such as live video at a faster speed.

He said AIS was also studying the technical details of a plan to invest in the international call gateway of its wholly owned subsidiary, AIS International Network.

The NTC has already approved AIS International's international gateway licence in principle.

However, Somprasong declined to say whether AIS International would kick off the service this year.

Sirivish Toomgum

The Nation