Thailand's Late Adoption of 3G is to Its Advantage as Pitfalls are Tried and Tested by Counterparts - Frost & Sullivan

In its recent outlook on the Southeast Asia mobile markets, Frost & Sullivan noted that operators in Thailand are learning that data services growth is fast replacing declining voice revenues. This realization has spurred aggressive push from the operator side to encourage take up of 2.5G services. As a result, operators have been anticipating the licensing and spectrum allocation for 3G in Thailand. With trials on existing networks conducted in 2009, operators have been readying networks and services for anticipated but delayed 2010/11 launches.

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Once 3G takes off completely, Frost & Sullivan expects to see postpaid numbers in mobile connections swell against the currently popular pre-paid mobile connections. Especially since operators will attempt to increase customer retention as the market hits saturation. Insights such as these and analysis of the Thailand telecoms market were presented at the inaugural Thailand Telecoms International Summit.

Held in association with the Ministry Of Information and Communication Technology of Thailand (MICT) Frost & Sullivan launched the day-long summit that was attended by over 100 delegates predominately from home-market at the Sofitel Centara Grand Bangkok, this morning.

Delivering the opening keynote the Guest-of-Honour(GOH) for the summit, Mr. Pol.Col. Suchart Wongananchai, General Inspector of Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (MICT) commented, "Telecommunications market here (in Thailand) is set to enter a new stage of development. With the recent launch of 3G services, Thailand's telecommunications operators are now preparing to enter the mobile broadband era, which will not only expand Thailand's online population but will make the Thai economy more competitive and open its door to a variety of next generation services which will create opportunities for Thai entrepreneurs in the e-commerce and mobile application areas."

He added that the introduction of 3G in Thailand will also consequently facilitate the uptake of broadband in rural areas which will help drive the development of the country on the whole.

The General Inspector's comment comes at a point where Thailand has made substantial progress towards reforming its telecoms regulatory regime. Though significant challenges over licensing persist, rising demand for mobile internet data, coupled with increasing focus by operators in creating new revenue streams, has been driving customers to shift from 2G to 2.5G.

Reiterating this new phase and challenge that Thailand's telecommunications sector is facing, Jayesh Easwaramony, vice-president, ICT Practice at Frost & Sullivan, presented the 'International Analyst Assessment - Outlook for Thailand's telecom industry 2010 – 2015'.

In his address Jayesh commented, "Thailand's telecommunications market is at a crossroad. Mobile SIM penetration has breached 100% of the population and many operators are now experiencing negative revenue growth. The obvious answer to carrier woes is mobile broadband growth, as the market's six operators are all in the midst of planning or deploying their 3G networks."

Adding onto his thoughts was summit chairman and Partner at Frost & Sullivan, Nitin Bhat. Nitin said that though delayed, the late take-up of mobile broadband did pose certain benefits to the Thai telecoms market. "As one of the last markets to commercialize mobile broadband services in the Asia Pacific region, there are many case studies that Thai operators can refer and relay on to successfully expand broadband usage in Thailand and to educate themselves about the pitfalls encountered by their neighbouring operators which they could avoid."

Further into the day, the summit featured speakers from Amdocs, AIS, CAT Telecom, Cisco, DTAC, Fujitsu Asia, Intec, Omniware Solutions, TOT Public Company Limited, True Corporation along with the Senator of Thailand - Anant Voratitipong.

The speakers from both domestic and regional markets discussed the opportunities and challenges in building a broadband future for Thailand, mobile cloud computing - bringing unprecedented sophistication to mobile applications and key initiatives in driving sustainable growth in the Thai telecoms market.

Following the lunch break, two tracks were in session concurrently - 'Adopting new business and service strategies to enhance the Thai customer experience and increase revenues' and 'Aligning technology strategy with business opportunities for sustainable broadband growth in Thailand'.

For complete details of the summit or to obtain presentation slides please contact neethiya.sadagopal@frost.com or visit http://www.frost-thaitelecom.com/

Fujitsu and Intec were the gold sponsors, Amdocs was the partner sponsor, while Dialogic was the exhibitor sponsor for the summit.

The official newspaper partner for the summit was the Wall Street Journal Asia, ZDNet Asia was the official online media partner, PRNewswire was the official newswire and Developing Telecoms was the supporting media for this summit. The American Chamber of Thailand was the supporting association for the summit.

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