March 29, 2017 – dtac hosted “Unlocking 5G spectrum towards sustainable Thailand 4.0” seminar to discuss Thailand’s digital transition in all sectors and reiterate the importance of a clear roadmap and IoT as keys to the country’s future and competitiveness. Experts from GSMA, ITU, Huawei, and Ericsson joined the panel discussion to highlight challenges and opportunities in the digital era, with the collaboration required from all relevant parties, and cited that spectrum roadmap plays a key role in driving towards a new generation of the Thai economy.
Mr. Lars Norling, Chief Executive Officer, Total Access Communication PLC or dtac, said, “Thailand is dealing with the emergence of 5G technology that is completely reshaping the standard of high-speed Internet, while enabling the Internet of Things (IoT), which integrates high-speed Internet connectivity with various equipment and devices, to utilize innovations to improve the quality of lives. dtac has continuously supported Thailand’s drive towards Digital Economy through collaboration with various parties, including the government, law and policy makers, and public and social sectors.
The government aims to create the digital economy to promote the nation’s and people’s interests, drive economy growth, and increase the country’s competitiveness in the region. dtac has played a part in creating a feasible roadmap to make Thailand become a full digital society by 2020.
“In the 5G era, we will see the development of new innovations, such as 5G-enabled robots performing highly accurate surgery and providing diagnoses of patients in the blink of an eye and self-driving cars that continuously keep you updated on traffic and whether there are parking spaces available. In the fishing industry, 5G will provide the long-awaited solution to boosting profitability in the sector. This will be thanks to advanced sensors and image analysis that will monitor each individual fish and separate any fish that are infected with lice at any early stage. Socially beneficial services that have previously not been possible will become a key part of both organizations and individuals’ digital lives,” said Lars.
5G testing has begun in several countries, including Norway in which Telenor, in partnership with Huawei, demonstrates a very high rate of data transfer via radio, which says a lot about the mobile broadband of the future. This was the first 5G demo on the path towards 5G standardization and the commercial launch of the technology.
Lars continued, “As a digital service provider, dtac has launched an IoT pilot project to help create smart farmers in Thailand, which is one of dtac’s major goals. The agricultural IoT solution is developed to measure and control temperature, soil and air moisture, lighting conditions, and other key factors involved in farming. The measuring devices are connected to an application that collects, displays, and analyzes data and results, which enables farmers to have precision agriculture. Two pilot tests have been conducted with successful results at Tae Khob Fah Farm for tomato and cherry farming, and CoCo Melon Farm for melon farming in Suphan Buri. This IoT pilot is part of the joint efforts to create a digital society and launch commercial 5G services in the future.”
5G will open up new and hitherto unknown customer experiences that will be possible thanks to extremely high bandwidth and speeds, in addition to low latency and excellent reliability. It is precisely these characteristics that enable ‘everything’ to be connected to 5G or IoT, and therefore a spectrum planning and roadmap plays a key role to the country’s leapfrog towards a new generation of 5G.
“In taking a step towards 5G era and “Thailand 4.0,” Thailand is prepared to enter the Fourth Industrial Revolution, driven by emerging technologies that help reduce the gaps that Thai people and businesses are facing. However, this can become a reality only when the entire digital world is connected and the country has a clear and long-term spectrum roadmap,” Lars concluded.
