Communications in Thailand

Thailand has an extensive network of telephone lines spanning throughout the country. TOT Public Company Limited and True Corporation operate the majority of the telephone network in the Bangkok metropolitan area while TOT Public Company Limited and TT&T Public Company Limited operate the telephone network in other provinces. After the 2006 Thailand coup d'état in September 2006, Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont announced plans to merge TOT with CAT Telecom in order to operate a 'Telecom Pool' where providers rent the ability to be able to operate rather than receiving a concession with hopes that the new system will create a more competitive environment driving growth in the sector.

During recent years, mobile cellular telephone ownership have grown at a much faster rate than landline ownership. This was partly driven by the mobile communications price wars in 2004-2005 which pushed prices down to as low as 0.25 Baht/minute [ [http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/06/14/bloomberg/sxadvanced.php International Herald Tribune, 15 June 2005] ] . There are approximately five times as many mobile cellular telephones than landlines in use. On current data, slightly over half of the Thai population owns a mobile cellular telephone.

There are several newspapers in mass circulation in Thailand with Thai Rath being the most popular. Of the several newspapers in mass circulation, three are English. Printed media in Thailand is subject to much less government control in contrast to the television where all free-to-air channels except one are government owned and run. This may change in the future as the new 2007 Constitution of Thailand will have a section guaranteeing free-to-air channels independent of the government.

Telephone

*Main lines in use: 9.1 million (2007) [ [http://service.nso.go.th/nso/g_indicator/IctIndicators.pdf Thailand ICT Indicator, page 5] ]
*Mobile cellular: 58 million (2008) [see www.ntc.or.th for updated information]
*Fixed Line Operators: TOT, True Corporation and TT&T
*Mobile Operators (largest first): AIS, DTAC, True Move (formerly: Orange), Hutch, CAT CDMA, TOT Thai Mobile 1900
*Major Voice over IP (VoIP) Operators: CAT2Call (CAT Telecom), TrueNetTalk (True Corporation), Mouthmun (Jasmine Internet), DeeCall (SawasdeeSHOP)

Telephone system

High quality, especially in urban areas such as Bangkok; privatization, as required by World Trade Organization standards, is planned to be complete by 2006
*Domestic: microwave radio relay and multichannel cable; domestic satellite including new iPSTAR satellite, so far the heaviest comms satellite in orbit.
*International: Satellite earth stations - 2 Intelsat (1 Indian Ocean and 1 Pacific Ocean)

Radio

*AM: 204
* FM: 334, shortwave 6 (1999)

There are 13.96 million radios in use (1997).

Television

There are a total of six free-to-air television channels in Thailand, which are: CH3 (BEC World), CH5, CH7 (BBTV), MODERNineTV, NBT (replaced TVT) and Thai PBS (replaced ITV and TITV).

There are 35.5 million televisions in use (2005).

Internet

ubmarine cables

There are five submarine cables used for communications landing in Thailand. Thailand has cable landing points in Satun, Petchaburi and Chonburi.

* SEA-ME-WE-3, SEA-ME-WE-4 linking South East Asia to the Middle East and Western Europe. SEA-ME-WE 4 was operational since 2006.
* Thailand-Indonesia-Singapore (TIS) operational since December 2003.
* APCN linking Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Philippines, Taiwan, Korea and Japan. The cable is operational since 1996.
* Thailand-Vietnam-Hong Kong (T-V-H) operational since February 1996.
* Flag Europe-Asia (FEA) operational since mid-1990s.

The Asia-America Gateway (AAG) is under construction and is expected to be operational in December 2008.

ee also

*Media of Thailand

References

there are 562 Television broadcast stations