AIS Leads FTTx Deployment in Thailand

AIS is Thailand's largest mobile operator. By the end of 2013, AIS had a more than 4.1 million subscribers, which is about 44% of the Thai mobile market. AIS leads the mobile market in terms of technology development and deployment.
Competition is fierce in Thailand telecom market and is even fiercer in the wireless sector. To maintain the leading position, AIS began tapping into the fixed-line broadband market in 2014. AIS has been involved in FTTx construction and is transitioning to become a full-service operator, with the hope of enhancing its competitiveness in the market.

Tapping into the Fixed-Line Broadband Market

Thailand's mobile penetration is more than 120%, and mobile operators are fighting each other on price. This has led to slower user growth for AIS and profit decline in recent years. What's worse, congested mobile data traffic during rush hours, is denigrating user experience and there have been more frequent user complaints. Since users can switch mobile networks in Thailand without changing their existing phone number, decline in user satisfaction may directly increase their churn rate.
Facing severe market challenges, AIS entrusted a consulting firm to investigate surfing habits of mobile users. The consultancy found that smartphone users preferred much more stable and faster fixed-line broadband than mobile data, and they also demanded high-speed hotspot video download and viewing. Therefore high-quality broadband experience has become the key to attracting and retaining customers.
However in Thailand, the number of fixed-line broadband users is less than five million, home broadband penetration rate is less than 20%, and ADSL is the most common mode of broadband connection. In 2014, AIS announced its fixed-line broadband strategy, which is designed to exploit the potential in the fixed-line broadband market. The strategy immediately triggered the competition for fast broadband connection in Thailand.

Leading Broadband Development

In 2013, AIS started researching GPON-based FTTx and also traced market-leading VDSL vectoring, the next-generation high-speed copper access technology. Mainstream broadband equipment vendors were invited to conduct vectoring tests and GPON system tests. After this testing, AIS devised a GPON-based FTTx network reconstruction plan. The plan has been devised to build a national FTTx network with two million lines within three years. AIS will adopt FTTH for major business and high-end users and next-generation VDSL vectoring for home users. AIS will leverage technological and bandwidth advantages to simplify network architecture and reduce opex.
AIS chose to cooperate with ZTE, who has leading fixed-line network technologies and years of experience in network construction, to deploy fixed-line broadband networks in core areas of Bangkok and other major cities in Thailand. The networks will offer ultra-broadband access services with a download rate of 1 Gbps and an upload rate of 200 Mbps.

Rapid Service Provisioning

Since AIS announced its march into the fixed-line broadband market in 2014, Thailand has sped up its broadband development and AIS has also quickened its step to build FTTx networks. AIS urgently needed a customized OSS to support rapid network deployment, reduce time to market for its new services, and make operations easier. In deploying next-generation fiber access networks, AIS was concerned about changing original operations of wireless broadband services, offering fixed-line broadband services at existing mobile business sites, and allocating subscriptions to end users.
A proper OSS is directly connected with AIS's fixed-line broadband service provisioning. ZTE has been chosen by AIS for its industry-leading QRUN OSS solution that could help AIS rapidly deploy fixed-line broadband service at existing mobile business sites and transit from pure mobile operator to full-service provider.
Before national FTTx networks were constructed, AIS had built an OSS platform within four months using ZTE's complete suite of OSS QRUN solution. The platform simplified FTTx service provisioning and supported 6000 new FTTx subscribers per month. Compared with other operators who need at least half a month to deliver broadband services based on a manual or half-manual service provisioning system, AIS takes one step ahead to seize the market opportunity with the QRUN solution.

Opex Savings for More Profit

In FTTH mode, plenty of ONTs are deployed at user homes and passive devices used at the user side. This dramatically reduces operating costs. Terminals are managed uniformly via TR069. This enables plug and play and also reduces operating costs.
ZTE's energy-efficient OLT design ensures that power consumption per PON port is 42% lower than the EU standard. The innovative OLTs ensure that a broadband access network consumes half the energy of a conventional broadband access network, significantly saving electricity costs for operators and users. These OLTs are also compact that save equipment room. AIS can place them in an outdoor shelter without renting an extra room. This saves network construction costs.
 
Full-Service Strategy to Lead the Competition

In April 2015, AIS formally announced its new brands in the FTTH, video, and smart home sectors and began to implement its full-service strategies.
"AIS Fibre" is a dominant brand of AIS in the fixed-line optical access sector. It delivers 1 Gbps access broadband services to enterprise and end users. "AIS Playbox" is a video brand that provides up to 100 live TV channels and 12,000 MP3 songs. "Quad-play" is a brand for smart home products that provides integrated mobile, home VoIP, and high-speed internet surfing services.
With the three FTTx brands and a good reputation as the largest mobile operator in Thailand, AIS has taken the lead and created a new competition pattern in the country's broadband access market. AIS used ZTE's QRUN solution to build an OSS platform for broadband access within four months and deployed FTTx networks that cover 100 thousand homes within half a year.
AIS is a GPON-based FTTx operator with the fastest network construction and service provisioning time in Thailand. By leveraging FTTH large-bandwidth and next-generation VDSL vectoring technologies, AIS offers a wide variety of broadband services to Thai people. In return, AIS will continue to benefit from network construction, operational cost, service revenue and network evolution for a long time and will outperform its rivals with superior network and service quality.