What to expect as 3G gains momentum across Thailand | Bangkok Post: tech

It has been four months now and most of the ToT's five partners have gone ahead and launched their 3G offerings commercially. Coverage is still patchy but a major network upgrade is due next month. So what can users expect, and which is the best 3G MVNO to go for right now?

A model promotes the 3G Sim card at last week’s Thailand Mobile Expo 2010 at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Center.

ToT launched its 3G network commercially on Dec 3 with 548 or 551 base stations around greater Bangkok, depending on which press release one reads. The network is capable of 7.2MBPS downstream and 2MBPS upstream, which will make sure every major shopping centre and office building in Bangkok gets coverage and ToT's 3G network in Chiang Mai and Pattaya will go online in April. Khon Kaen, Hua Hin and Phuket are scheduled to go live in May. Upcountry equipment will feature a maximum download speed of 14.4MBPS, double the speed in Bangkok with a compatible device.

All modern high-end phones from the past couple of years are 3G-compatible. With the proper software, they can be tethered to laptops and netbooks to get online. For instance, Nokia OVI Suite has (almost) one-touch access to use the phone to get the PC online. "Almost", as none of the phones and suites know of ToT 3G yet and configuration for the access point name (APN) has to be manual. ToT 3G needs the APN to be set as "internet".

ToT has launched on the standard 2100 frequency, not the oddball 1900 (North American) frequency it was using for GSM.

The problem with coverage is compounded by the high 2100 MHz frequency that does not penetrate buildings or mosquito meshes. Practical use is further exacerbated by the roaming arrangement with AIS. It is possible to roam on to AIS for most of the MVNOs (not 365 or i-Kool) to provide (expensive) voice and SMS coverage when out of range of 3G. However, there is no data roaming on AIS Edge/GPRS. This means that if allowed to roam, push mail - one of the most sought after features of today's smart phones - will not work and often spew out errors and warnings.

In practice, most phones will select a good AIS signal over an acceptable but low ToT 3G signal. Locking the phone to ToT Mobile or to UMTS 3G-only mode helps in that sense, but that means that the phone will be not be able to receive a call when out of 3G range. All in all, that means users still have to keep hold of their GSM Sims and phones for a while yet.

Some places in Bangkok have very good coverage and some parts have no signal at all. A second Sim card therefore makes a lot of sense, with coverage available in most business areas if you are willing to walk around and hunt for a good signal. Indoor coverage is very much hit and miss depending on your proximity to a base station and the buildings in the area.

ToT is marketing 3G and selling Sims both itself, at any ToT office, and through five Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) - 365, i-Kool (Loxley), i-Mobile 3GX (Samart), IEC and M-Conzult. Most offer both prepaid and post-paid plans. Most post-paid plans are similar to ToT's offering but there is quite a bit of variation on pre-paid plans.

ToT offers S, M, L and XL packages on post-paid contracts starting with 1GB for 199 baht, 2.5GB for 399; 4GB for 599 and 6GB for 799 baht, respectively. Usage in excess of the bundled packages is 0.20 baht per MB or 200 baht a GB. Worryingly, though, the fine print in the paperwork that comes with the Sim says that excess usage outside of the bundle is charged at a staggering 3 baht per MB or 3,072 baht a GB, but the call centre assures users they can ignore it as it is just the maximum price they can charge in ToT's agreement with the NTC. Still, given the fact that i-Kool offers cheaper pre-paid data negates the point of having a post-paid contract in the first place.

Most operators have divided the market into two - a bundle with voice, video calls, SMS and MMS, and a data-only plan. The price per MB of these bundles are higher than the best data-only plans. For instance, 3GX offers calls at 1 baht a minute, video-calls at 1.50 baht a minute, SMSes at 2 baht each. As for data, a 500-baht 3GX top-up will give you 1GB of data in addition to the 500 baht balance for calls and SMSes (equivalent to 200 baht a GB), but any excess over the 1GB is charged at 0.50 baht per megabyte (equivalent to 500 baht a GB).

For large data users, 365 offers 1GB (or 30 days) for 200 baht, 3GX 2,000MB or 60 days for 500 baht, and i-Kool offer the best value of all the 3G operators (for now) at 5GB (5,120MB) for 500 baht (or 30 days, whichever comes first). 365 has promised an unmetered data plan, but that has not materialised yet.

It is interesting to see how some define a gigabyte as 1,000MB, while i-Kool seems to have a serious case of indecision and defines it as 1,024MB, even though they define a megabyte as 1,000KB rather than 1,024KB. It is generally accepted that 1GB should be 1,048,576KB and not 1,000,000, and never the hybrid 1,024,000.

Topping up is different depending on the MVNO. i-Kool top up cards are quite hard to come by as Loxley has only a limited dealer network through its Sony-Ericsson brand shops, but they take credit cards and PaySbuy e-Money online with no charge. After payment, an SMS is sent to any phone (not necessarily an i-Kool phone) and via email. Then that code has to be entered on the 3G phone for the top-up to be activated. This means that if it is in a dongle with no voice call function, the Sim has to be removed and put into a phone for it to be topped up. The same is true for checking usage balance. It is only possible by dialling a code from the phone itself - again requiring it to be removed from a dongle to check the balance. It is also confusing, as i-Kool has different balance accounts for data that came with the Sim and for data that has been topped up after purchase.

365 is a bit better in the respect that it allows top-up directly to the Sim from its online portal, but it's also a bit more clumsy in that payment is only accepted in the form of a bank transfer to its Kasikorn Bank or Bank of Ayuthaya account. After making the transfer, the user has to log in to the portal again, tell 365 of the exact time of the transfer and then wait for someone to manually verify the payment and top up your account for you. This manual time-based matching approach probably works for now but when eventually thousands of people are trying to top up each day looks a recipe for chaos.

Other MVNOs vary and one should check carefully before committing to a purchase. Suffice to say that none offer the ease and simplicity of mainstream GSM operators when it comes to topping up.

5GB is more than enough for phone use and, to all intents and purposes, it is as good as unlimited. However, connect it to a bandwidth-hungry PC and 5GB suddenly seems very little. 365 says most men use 25GB of data a month and women 35GB if put on unmetered plans on a PC or notebook.

As a replacement for home broadband, 3G has great potential. It is possible to buy a special router that accepts a USB dongle for around 3,000 baht that can share the 3G connection via a wireless LAN. ToT has obviously made sure that the gateway is not a major bottleneck with speeds of up to 6MBPS down not unheard of with a good, steady signal on a 7.2MBPS device. For places without ADSL on the outskirts of Bangkok, it is perhaps the only channel for true Broadband Internet access. Many users in Bangkok are now beginning to use 3G as their "premium" connection when speed is needed or their copper connection has a problem.

This is probably the reverse use case that most countries have found themselves in, with copper being slow and used for downloading large files and 3G being used for premium connections. Obviously this will have major implications as to how the market develops.

The possibility of paying 1,000 to 1,500 baht a month for 10 to 15GB a month of fast, but not unmetered, broadband will appeal to many. But that same connection can be taken anywhere in Bangkok too and soon other major cities in the country. No more searching for True Wi-Fi or Starbucks; a 3G user can sit down anywhere (with a signal), plug in and go online with all the speed they are used to at home, and more. With more and more thin and light notebooks and netbooks coming with built-in 3G, this market is probably set to be the biggest in terms of bandwidth usage. After all, who wants to use m.facebook. com on a phone when they can have the full Facebook experience on the large screen? A busy user who does not spend too much time at home downloading movie files now has the choice of using 3G instead of home ADSL.

For mobile broadband on the phone, the experience is marred by (admittedly improving) coverage issues. TV channels on Windows Mobile are smooth and responsive, better than many home Wi-Fi ADSL connections, even. It also opens up the possibility of uploading pictures and videos almost instantly to social networking sites and even for broadcasting video over sites such as QIK or Bambuser. Unless the signal is very strong, streaming video quality is still limited in practice though to QVGA, but at the right place with a good signal, a clear VGA picture with a rich sound-track can be broadcast. Only the most recent 3G phones have 2MBPS HSUPA (high speed uplink) and most phones from a few years ago are limited to 3.6MBPS down and 384KBPS up.

Ironically, using a high-bandwidth signal might make video very clear on a tiny screen, but more data means more to process and tax the phone's CPU and thus greatly reduces battery life. Manually limiting the bandwidth in Windows Media Player, for instance, to 100KBPS is hardly noticeable on the small screen but helps extend battery life greatly.

Using low-bandwidth mobile versions of sites such as Twitter or Facebook is much more fluid over 3G, not so much because of the bandwidth but the reduced latency and general snappiness of the network.

3G also makes practical the use of the Skyfire browser that allows full Flash video to be transcoded and shown on most modern smart phones. Without 3G, sites can be transcoded and sent to the phone, but not video, at least not smoothly enough to be of any real-world use.

On high resolution Android phones such as the Nexus One, 3G means seamless access to Picasa web albums to show of photos as if they were stored locally on the phone, complete with the 3D "floating in the air" feature of Android 2.1.

Skype video calls from a compatible smart phone via Fring is a possibility, as is using Skype for free calls to other Skype users. Skype now has an official client for Nokia S60 3rd Edition (non-touchscreen), iPhone (needs a jailbreak to allow VOIP calls over 3G), Maemo (Nokia N900) and Windows Mobile. None of the tested ToT MVNOs block Skype. Ironically, with a Skypeout subscription and a suitable phone, it is now possible to make unlimited calls to Thailand for US$5.95 (195 baht) a month, including calls to mobiles.

How long this will continue before someone at ToT decides to block it will be interesting.

In the UK, none of the major networks allow VoIP in their contract but most seem to turn a blind eye to it, except for excessive use. The smallest operator, Hutchinson 3, however, encourages Skype, leveraging it as a disruptive force to gain market share from the big players.

That said, most of the latest 3G phones now do away with the front-facing video-call camera. None of the recent smart phones from HTC have one, for instance. In the west, video-calling has failed as it is too personally intrusive unless it is for family or for executive meetings. For many, once they have made one call, that is enough and it is then time to move on to the greater Internet. How it will fare in Thailand is still too early to say.

Bangkok has 3G now. It is far from perfect and coverage is patchy, but finally the smart phones can be let loose and enjoy their birthright. Until coverage improves, it will be the nomadic user on a big screen laptop or netbook that has the most to gain from 3G, but at the very reasonable prices for prepaid Sim cards, there is no reason not to go out and try one out. 3G has been a long time coming and now the time has arrived to see what all the fuss is about first-hand.

Can business depend on 3G? Not yet, but they can try. Can social media users take advantage of 3G to share pictures and videos with the world? Most definitely.

The next stage of Thailand's 3G evolution will not happen until the NTC finally gets around to issuing 3G licenses and the major players get into the game. Most analysts say that ToT will never be able to fund a comprehensive nationwide network the way AIS or Dtac can. In the meantime, we may get a sideshow when the oddball frequency 3G networks get launched. Dtac is waiting for approval from its concession holder, CAT Telecom, to roll out 1,000 base stations on 850MHz 3G around Bangkok. 850MHz 3G phones are few and far between (apart from the iPhone). AIS, if it can sort out its legacy network and spectrum spaghetti, is in a much better position from a device point of view to roll out 900MHz 3G as all new phones on the Thai market support 900 and 2100.

The real impact of 3G will not be felt until coverage is extended upcountry. There, 3G will be the only way for many to access broadband and will bring the Internet to millions of users - not so much on their smart phone, but on their home PC.

The macroeconomic benefits of affordable, broadband access will be great for the Thai economy, as will the social changes from being able to access information and work remotely from remote villages in the middle of nowhere.

Relate Search: 3G network, Thailand Mobile Expo 2010, Queen Sirikit National Convention Center