This year, wholesale Internet costs will fall, more fiber networks will be rolled out to the well-to-do but the country will be no closer to providing cheap connectivity to the masses due to lack of focused government subsidy and strategy on basic telecommunications infrastructure, predicts leading analyst Ovum.
Ovum research analyst Matt Walker said that in Thailand, wireless has more appeal than it does in, say, China where there are over 300 million fixed lines. However, that was a result of an explicit government push and subsidy. Malaysia is also helping to subsidize Telecom Malaysia to invest in a next generation FTTx network. FTTx could mean fiber to the home (FTTH), to the kerb, basement or anywhere else nearer to the end user.
Broadband in Thailand will be served by a mix of technologies such as ADSL, FTTx and 3G and WiMAX. That said, Walker noted that TT&T has publicly stated that it does not wish to enter into 3G and it will thus tap as much out of its fixed line network as it possibly can.
Meanwhile, the cost of IP transit is going down with several new fiber optic undersea cable systems being rolled out, chief of which is the AAG Asia America gateway and Flag, led by Reliance in India aimed at improving connectivity between Asia and Europe.
The end result for Thailand will be lower cost, improved performance and greater resilience to fishing accidents or earthquakes.
Thailand today faces a situation similar to India, with low PC ownership rates, low APRUs (average revenue per user), expensive international bandwidth and powerful incumbents that do not have any strong incentive to move forward or open up their network. Walker felt that today India is just starting to open up while Thailand is two to three years behind the curve.
The biggest problem for operators in Thailand is scale. In Bangkok, it is possible to target 200 condominiums and have a fairly good business, but in the countryside, it is a much more complex environment as Walker, who lives in the northern city of Chiang Mai, knows well.
Many operators are looking to emulating True's converged offering and offering video along with broadband.
But while that may be possible with fiber to a condominium and then VDSL copper within the building, outside that scenario and especially on modern housing estates, the technology is not yet feasible.
Walker says that the market for telecom equipment is global as is the market for finance. Today, getting access to credit lines is very difficult and that has effected different vendors differently.
Cisco is in a very strong position as is Alcatel-Lucent and both are in a position to be aggressive on pricing and joint rollouts.
Alcatel-Lucent in particular started its China strategy earlier than most and sees the country not just as a source for cheap labor, but for innovation and applications.
Play video
There are currently no comments for this post.