absolutelyBangkok archive · Business & Economics
Originally published Oct. 18, 2009
What a welcome sight arriving in Hua Hin. Huge AIS billboards praising AIS Super 3G with whopping speeds of 7.2 Mbps. Welcome to the future in laid-back Hua Hin. But that future is still the past.
Make no mistake. That’s not the 3G on the 2100 MHz band. It’s AIS’ very own virtual super highway on its 900 MHz GSM band, furthermore available in parts of Bangkok, Chiang Mai and Chonburi.
And the speed doesn’t come for free. 1.5 GB set you back 300 baht, 30 GB 1,500 baht. Still, with a government trying to be milking some 40 billion baht from the sale of 3G licenses and no auction in sight for years, Thai phone companies are forced to go their own way.
I’m not sure if I’ll be an early adopter of 3G. The price tag will be steep compared to GPRS EDGE speeds — and those EDGE speeds don’t seem that slow to me anyway. And which phones — beside the iPhone — offer the 3G hardware? The transition won’t come over night.
Especially since investments in GSM networks have long paid off. Hardware infrastructure for each subscriber amounted to a few thousand baht per head. The entry of Chinese hardware players lowered that amount even further.
So do the math how much net profit AIS or DTAC or True is making each month thanks to you. GSM is a cash cow, 3G will alter the game and deal out whole new cards.
Already today AIS’ Super 3G 7.2 Mbps would give you the independence to cancel your landline, tether your computers to whatever 3G phone and become fully wireless.
But first the investments in 3G have to pay off, and pay off quickly for that. But I doubt that the Thai population is ready for 3G. Who needs high-speed data transfers?
But even better, when the old GSM network can deliver speeds of 7.2 Mbps, who needs 3G?!
And how many of the fancy iPhone and BlackBerry users here know how to send an email with their phones? Maybe there’s a reason that Thailand hasn’t seen the light of 3G to this day. What was introduced in Europe’s mass market in March 2003, remains a vision in Thailand. And a single year is already an eternity in terms of improving the spectral efficiencies to gain far greater bandwiths.
But not only that there may not be a market for 3G. Under the pretext of nationalist rhetoric, covering up outright hypocrisy, the Thai phone operator of all things that seems to be predestined to offer a 3G network is trying everything to delay a 3G license auction.
You’d assume that True with its exclusive iPhone deal would be the natural 3G provider. But True Corp prefers to dredge up the nationalism card to support its bid rivals for incompetence.
An Andrew Roberts point out in PostBag:
News reports on the imminent 3G services bidding war reveals both nationalist rhetoric and outright hypocrisy on behalf of one of the protagonists that warrants further examination.
For True Corp to dredge up the nationalism card to support its bid rivals ”New” Coke in the 80s for incompetence. To bring ”principle” into a campaign is a sound strategy, and waving the flag of ”protecting national assets” is a popular sound bite in Thailand, but wholly inappropriate in this case.
True owns an English-language satellite TV station and has an exclusive on a phone heavily reliant on 3G with considerable appeal to expats — surely this is a dangerous game. For such a message to delay the auction (and evidently sway a minister) is an indictment of the values of policy-makers and the decision-making process as a whole.
However ill-considered the message, True’s hypocrisy is somewhat more galling. True’s owners, CP, have made foreign partners a big part of their business here and abroad. Tesco-Lotus is a prime example. Some might say that this store, along with CP’s 7-Eleven, is destroying Thai shopkeepers’ livelihoods. Is this damaging the nation’s assets, an entire sector of Thai society? How much of this profiteering is going back to the UK and bolstering Tesco’s share price?
In True’s previous life as Telecom Asia, you didn’t have to dig too far to find Nynex as their technology partner, without whom True’s telecom business would not exist today.
All in all, True’s strategy seems to be one of desperation; they are way behind AIS and DTAC and have an iPhone exclusive that without 3G struggles to justify its hefty price tag.
The writer hopes that sanity prevails and the auction goes ahead as planned, and that consumers, not vested interests, are for once at the heart of any decision.
But… who needs 3G?!
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