The group plans to establish a commercial alliance in which the Ministry will be a strategic partner, the Bangkok Post reported.
The project calls for sales of inexpensive cell phones, wireless PDAs and notebooks and content creation of wireless services designed for the lower-income Thai market. IBM, Microsoft, Intel, Oracle, HP, Cisco, Dell and Samsung have said they will support the initiative.
Microsoft Thailand's managing director, Andrew McBean told the Bangkok Post that the project could look for web services which would bring sustained benefits to low-end customers.
Thailand's Information, Communications and Technology (ICT) launched a "people's PC" in May this year, a low-end computer running Thai-customized Linux. The project had government agencies working directly with commercial partners.
It launched successfully and met with high demand. More companies have joined in, with Microsoft in June slashing its prices for a bundled Windows XP and Office suite sold with the "people's PC".
The new "Budget Wireless Project" may not lower wireless hardware prices significantly, but through the use of wireless technology, could offer Internet access to the Thai poor.
Thailand has a range of pilot ICT projects for the poor, including an effort to develop Thai-language local content.
The Bangkok Post commented that the project could help companies field test their Internet services for low-income consumers. As wireless technology moves from wealthy early-adopters to the mass market, companies will need to meet low-income user needs to grow.
The newspaper warned of the "entertainment trap" seen in Korea and Japan, where Internet marketers targeted the mass low-end market with entertainment applications like gaming or gambling, but overall saw it as a pragmatic Thai solution to the global problem of closing the digital divide.
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