CAT preparing for hot broadband competition

One of the current dominant players, True Corp, is also expected to expand its network coverage and increase subscriber numbers.

Dhanant Subhadrabandhu, CAT’s executive vice president for product development, said the state agency would rebrand its FTTx (fibre to the x) broadband business early next year. It expects to have a total of 220,000 households using the service by the end of 2015, up from around 40,000 at present.

FTTx refers to the transmission of broadband from the main network to an end receiver via optical fibre, such as to a neighbourhood (FTTN) or a desktop (FTTD).

CAT has begun expanding its FTTx network nationwide. 

“We’ve spent around Bt2 billion since last year on the FTTx network expansion and will spend the same next year,” Dhanant said. 

Currently around 5 million households nationwide subscribe to broadband Internet service, mostly under mainstream high-speed data-communication technologies like asymmetric digital subscriber lines (ADSL) and cable modems.

True has about 2 million broadband users, TOT around 1.4 million, and Triple T Broadband around 1.4 million. True and CAT each claim around 40,000 FTTx users. Triple T is believed to have around 20,000 FTTx users and TOT around 10,000.

 

FTTX business 

“We see a lot of opportunity in this FTTx business, since there are more than 23 million households in Thailand but only 5 million access fixed broadband,” Dhanant said.

The largest cellular operator, AIS, will officially launch a broadband Internet service early next year. It will leverage its extensive fibre-optics network to provide the service, using advanced technologies like FTTx and VDSL (very-high-bit-rate digital subscriber lines). 

AIS has set the budget for the project at Bt4.6 billion with the capacity to serve a million households and targeting 300,000 subscribers. The investment in the first year (2015) will be around Bt1 billion with the capacity to serve 250,000 homes and with a customer target of 80,000 subscribers. “We see that AIS is a new competitor, since it announced it would invest around Bt4 billion to provide fixed broadband service early next year,” Dhanant said.

CAT will adjust its customer service and pricing to cope with the fierce competition in the broadband market next year. Currently its FTTx service costs Bt750 per month for a connection speed of 15 megabits per second, while True charges Bt590 per month for the same speed.

CAT also plans to partner with major property developers to provide fibre-optic service to their residential projects.

The state agency also intends to launch Internet protocol TV service as another key growth driver for its fixed-line broadband business.

“We will launch IPTV service early next year, which will broadcast the 24 commercial digital TV channels, plus more. CAT forecasts securing a million IPTV subscribers within four years,” he said.