Telecommunications in Thailand

Thailand is a country with considerable potential. It has abundant natural resources, a sizeable population and a strong cultural heritage. It is a popular tourist destination and has developed a strong manufacturing sector. At the same time, it has suffered a number of negative effects over the years from political instability and widespread corruption, and these have tended to damage the country’s standing in the world.

Despite these problems, Thailand has many positive features. It now has a reasonably strong economy, having put most of the problems exposed by the economic crisis of 1997 behind it. The country is diversifying, relying less on the proceeds from low-level manufacturing and more on service industries. The infrastructure is being improved, while greater investment in education, which has always been seriously deficient, should result in long-term benefits in the country’s aim to become a much more sophisticated society.

The country’s social and economic development is guided by a series of development plans that are produced by a government agency, the National Economic and Social Development Board. The plans cover successive five-year intervals, each one building on the last. The first was produced in 1961, and the latest plan is the ninth in the series covering the period 2007-2011.

The most pressing - and most difficult - issue in the telecom industry today is the liberalisation and de-regulation of the market, a process that was supposed to be complete by the end of 2006 but is still a long way from being accomplished.

The range and complexity of the concessions granted to companies in the private sector by various government agencies over the years has been a major difficulty. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that the terms and conditions of those concessions are complex, varied and sometimes obscure.

Also, the country has not been helped by years of neglect of the country’s information infrastructure, where powerful vested interests, both in government and outside it, simply acted to further their own ends.

The telecom industry has, in many respects, recovered well from the serious financial crisis experienced by the country in 1997. That crisis had severe repercussions for the whole economy but, for a variety of reasons, was particularly damaging to the telecom industry. The costs of the major infrastructural investments that many telecom companies had just made could not be recouped because of a fall in demand. Many companies are still suffering because of the large debts they incurred at that time.

Nevertheless, the telecom industry is recovering. Nowhere is this clearer than in the mobile sector where rapid subscriber growth over the past four years has taken the country up into the middle range of Asia-Pacific countries in terms of mobile telephony penetration. Other telecom sectors are also showing promise.

Further development of the telecom infrastructure is crucial to the success of a number of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) projects that have been initiated, many with government backing.

Thailand’s telecom industry is still under-developed, but its potential makes it an attractive proposition as a medium-to-long-term investment. Even so, one needs to understand the market thoroughly to capitalize on this potential. This Study is designed to assist that understanding.