Chonburi Public
Relation Department
Long-suffering mobile Internet users in Chonburi will
finally get a chance to experience high-speed third-generation data
services via TrueMove under a test program that allows the telecom
company to offer 3G over its existing 2G network.
TrueMove is testing a program that allows the telecom company to offer
3G over its existing 2G network.
Even as the rest of Asia is implementing
fourth-generation mobile data networks, Thailand still hasn’t managed to
build a true 3G network. Fed up with the bureaucratic delays, lawsuits
and corporate infighting that have stalled the sale of 3G licenses on
the 2.1 gigahertz frequency, True and other companies have begun pushing
high-speed data over frequencies they already own.
TrueMove, a unit of True Corp., has won rights to
test high-speed packet access, or HSPA, services over its current 850
megahertz 2G frequency. Thailand’s third-largest phone operator already
has deployed the service in Bangkok and Pattaya, but on Nov. 17
announced it would expand to 600 access points that cover all of
Chonburi.
Piroon Paireepairit, director of multimedia and
marketing, said TrueMove will additionally expand its True WiFi Internet
hotspot network to 18,000 points throughout Thailand.
In Chonburi, new hotspots will be added at Burapha
University, Central Chonburi, Chalermthai, Forum, and Laemthong
department stores, Sriracha’s Robinsons and Assumption School and
Kasetsart University. In all, there will be 390 hotspots in the
province.
True has seen the strongest subscriber growth of any
of Thailand’s mobile operators due to both the size of its 3G network
and because it was the first of the telcos to officially offer Apple’s
iPhone.
Still, mobile market growth in Thailand continues to
lag the rest of Southeast Asia due to the country’s inability to offer
the latest mobile data technology.
In September, the Central Administrative Court issued
another injunction against a planned 3G license auction to True and
other private operators after government-owned CAT Telecom and TOT filed
separate petitions challenging the authority of the National
Telecommunications Commission to allocate 2.1 ghz spectrum use for 3G
services.
The utilities argue they will lose massive revenues
should other private firms acquire 3G licenses. Yet neither company has
been able to upgrade their own networks to widely offer such services.
As an end run around CAT’s protectionism, True is now
in talks to buy the mobile phone operations of Hong Kong’s Hutchison
Telecommunications International Ltd., which operates a 3G service over
CAT’s own network. The company is also considering a deal to simply rent
CAT’s network for five years.
