The Nation | March 14, 2011 | Usanee Mongkolporn
Digital Phone Co (DPC), the cellular subsidiary of Advanced Info Service (AIS), has requested CAT Telecom’s permission to test the 4G wireless broadband service, which is seen as AIS’ attempt to explore a new opportunity in the wireless broadband service field to compete with True Corp.
A source at AIS said that DPC is waiting for permission from CAT, which owns DPC’s concession, to test the 4G Long-term Evolution (LTE) technology service on DPC’s 1,800MHz spectrum. DPC is expected to test the service with all three telecom equipment suppliers Huawei Technologies, ZTE, and Ericsson.
The source added that according to the planned trial, these suppliers would ask for permission from the National Telecommunica-tion Commission (NTC) to test the 4G service on DPC’s spectrum in parallel with DPC’s request for CAT’s permission for such a test.
The DPC’s move came after CAT granted deals to True subsidiaries Real Move and Real Future in January, which paved the way for their joint development of the commercial 3G-High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) service with CAT. AIS cannot let True group take the lead alone in the arena, so it has to seek ways to stay ahead or catch up with its competitor.
The AIS source said that if CAT supports True to promote the 3G service, the state agency should also support DPC to test the 4G service.
A DPC source added that DPC would set aside as much as 10MHz bandwidth out of total 12.5MHz bandwidth of its 1,800MHz spectrum for the 4G trial, given that the LTE technology requires huge bandwidth. The test will be run for 90 days on between seven to eight numbers of DPC cellular base stations in Bangkok.
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