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Published on April 22, 2008

Sirivish Toomgum

The Nation

The association's senior vice president for public policy, Ricardo Tavares, said yesterday that if the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) could grant the 2.1GHz spectrum licences for the third-generation (3G) cellular broadband service by August, telecom operators could kick off the service within this year.

NTC officials had said recently it could be ready to grant the licences in August.

Tavares said the timing was important as all telecom operators could get their licences at the same time and launch the 3G service virtually simultaneously, ensuring fair competition.

The 2.1GHz band is the global standard platform for offering the 3G service.

Tavares feels Thailand is ready for 3G because of pent-up demand for high-speed data services, while the voice market had already matured.

While waiting for the 2.1GHz licences, cellular operators are moving ahead with plans to launch the 3G service on their existing 900 or 850 megahertz spectra after receiving support from the Information and Communications Technology Ministry.

Advanced Info Service (AIS) is set to kick off its 3G service on its 900MHz spectrum in Chiang Mai next month, while Total Access Communication (DTAC) is still waiting for the NTC to grant permission to import 3G equipment to develop the service on its 850MHz frequency.

True Move is waiting for its concession owner CAT Telecom to allocate the 850MHz spectrum to it to develop the service.

AIS has set aside Bt600 million to roll out the 3G service on its 900MHz spectrum in 20 provinces, while DTAC plans to spend around Bt5 billion on the service development.

There were around 56.2 million mobile-phone subscribers in Thailand last year, representing 88.3 per cent of the population. The number of fixed-line broadband users stood at 1.4 million, representing only 2.2 per cent of the population.

The GSMA is the global trade association for the mobile industry, representing more than 700 GSM mobile-phone operators across 218 countries.