IP telephony in Thailand, quality of services and pricing : guidelines for Thai policy makers | |
| Author | Sognen, Cato |
| Call Number | AIT RSPR no.SM-04-38 |
| Subject(s) | Internet telephony--Thailand Telecommunication--Marketing--Thailand |
| Note | A research study submitted in pa1tial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Business Administration. School of Management |
| Publisher | Asian Institute of Technology |
| Series Statement | Research studies project report ;|vno. SM-04-38 |
| Abstract | To conform to the WTO requirements, which stipulate that the Thai Telecom market must be fully liberalized by the year 2006. Hence, the Thai telecom market will be developed from a government monopoly into a regulated, liberalized market with a number of operators licensed by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) as regulator. The NTC will establish rules and regulations on competitive practices concerning such matters as qualifications, licenses, operating conditions, fees, tariff structures, and consumer rights. The cmrent the Thai telecommunication market with regulated rates and high prices sustained by monopoly players, appear to provide a number of options for new entrants to offer a much lower cost alternative to incumbent providers by stmctuling themselves as carrier of voice over the IP based networks The economic benefit of IP Telephony for consumers' is understandable. However, anyone who has made calls over the Internet can attest to the fact the quality is variable at best. If factors like quality, ease of use, reliability, and ubiquity are equal, the choice of IP Telephony over traditional telephony is obvious. For the moment, these factors are not equal. Therefore consumers' must generally make a trade-off between p1ice and quality, and that is an area where government oversight is ciitical. Thai policy makers have a number of options. Each entails different QoS targets, incentives, levels of certainty about the likely results, and costs. Some could be viewed as supplemental to the existing plice regulation approach, while others involve building QoS into it. The choice about approach will need to have regard to a number of practical and industiy specific issues. The most important of the practical issues is identifying what consumers' preferences are. This study reveals that the three most impmtant quality critelia for Thai consumers are: a) voice quality, b) call successful rate and 3) availability for the indeed duration of the call. The study also reveals the consumers quality level expectation for several quality parameters, these being voice quality, call successful rate, availability, network outage, time to establish connection and misrouted calls. The authors have anived at seven recommendations that should underlie QoS regulation in Thailand. These being a) Ha1monization with regional and global regulato1y standards; b) Base approaches adopted upon suppmt obtained from stakeholders, including consumers, industry and other regulators; c) QoS regulation should cover a range of QoS perf01mance indicators within which selections can be made to fit the cases of the different communication services. These performance indicators should be review regularly and changed regularly according to changing user requirements, technical development and new services; d) While minimum targets must be set, operators must be also be bounded by their own commitinents, with propo1tionate sanctions when these targets are not met; e) Consumers should be provided with ti·ansparent and comparable information on operators performances. The piinciple is that operators should record performance information and that NTC can access to, and ensure publication of, this information; f) Minimize Regulatory Intervention after competition is established; g) Take a comprehensive view of service quality, drawing on consumers needs, wants and satisfaction and the capacity of providers to meet these. |
| Year | 2004 |
| Corresponding Series Added Entry | Asian Institute of Technology. Research studies project report ; no. SM-04-38 |
| Type | Research Study Project Report (RSPR) |
| Department | Other Field of Studies (No Department) |
| Academic Program/FoS | Master of Business Administration (MBA) (Publication code=SM) |
| Chairperson(s) | Donyaprueth Krairit |
| Examination Committee(s) | Tang, John C. S. ;Igel, Barbara |
| Degree | Research Studies Project Report (M. Sc.) - Asian Institute of Technology, 2004 |