5G to improve quality of life: Deputy PM

Prawit was presiding over the event “5G The New BEGINNING to change Thailand's economic landscape”, co-hosted by Krungthep Turakit newspaper, The Nation, Thansettakij newspaper, Kom Chad Leuk newspaper, and Khao Hoon newspaper.
He added that the 5G technology would help bridge the income gap and widen people's accessibility to information and education as well as healthcare services. All these will lead to the improvement of people's living quality.
The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission plans to hold a multiple spectrum band auction in February next year.
He added that the government is aware of the challenges that telecom operators will face in planning the investment in the 5G network and service.

The NBTC telecom subcommittee has recently announced that it will auction only three spectrum bands in February, a change from the four bands originally planned.
NBTC’s secretary-general Takorn Tantasith said the subcommittee resolved to auction 1800MHz, 2600MHz, 26 GHz, while the 700MHz will be auctioned later. 
The subcommittee is of the opinion that the 700MHz band should be auctioned together with 3500MHz band at a later date.

Merely rolling out 5G networks will not be enough for Thailand to reap the full economic benefits of 5G, the chief executive officer of Total Access Communication, Alexandra Reich, said in a keynote address.
She added that unlocking the full benefits of 5G would require a collaboration of all state and private parties.
She encouraged businesses to reach out to all telecom operators to jointly build 5G use cases together and drive sustainable economic growth in Thailand.
According to a report by the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission report, the lack of a 5G ecosystem in Thailand by 2030 would come at an opportunity cost of Bt2.3 trillion.
She said that 5G growth will be very different from 4G: it will come from B2B (business-to-business) and B2B2C (business to business to consumer) use cases rather than just consumers and mobile network operators.
She said there is still time to start exploring what 5G can do for Thai businesses.
She pointed out some areas where businesses can most benefit from 5G.
She said 5G could bring vastly improved upload and download speeds, a game changer for video surveillance and analytics.
This was set to improve efficiencies across a wide range of industries, from energy and transportation to cities and facility management, she said.
She added that in the world of retail, in-store video surveillance and analytics could identify consumer-purchasing patterns and behaviours in real-time, allowing optimised pricing, quickly spotting shifting retail trends and even predicting where demand is headed.
She said DTAC remained committed to promoting 5G in Thailand and it was responding by upgrading its network and exploring multiple-use cases, from fixed wireless access to connected vehicles.

Digital Economy and Society Minister Buddhipongse Punakanta said at the event that he supported CAT Telecom and TOT taking part in the bid.
However, Weerawat Kiattipongthaworn, chief corporate officer of Advanced Info Service, said the two state agencies should not compete with private telecom operators.