[Satellite News [08-07-08] TrueVisions UBC, the main direct-to-home (DTH) platform in Thailand, plans to launch high-definition (HD) services in 2009, Ongard Prapakamol, the company’s chief commercial officer, told Satellite News.
    “I think we are likely to launch services in the first half of next year,” he said. “The content in Asia and the economies of scale for launching these services will be more mature. HD will be more widely adopted in the region. In terms of economies of scale, the costs of transmission should be much better compared to this year.”
    Thailand has a population of around 65 million people, and TrueVisions has nearly 1 million satellite pay-TV subscribers.
    TrueVisions must still decide which business model it will use and how many channels the operator will offer at launch, said Ongard. “You have to look at what channels will be available and what categories they will be available in in Asia. Secondly, we have to look at what business model. Is it a value-added service or a paid subscription? We need to pinpoint factors like this before we say how many channels.”
    The company also offers pay-TV services via cable. TrueVisions already is exploring a hybrid DTH/IP strategy. “We have a sister company operating True IPTV within our group,” said Ongard. “… We can really complement each other by going with a hybrid DVB/IP box, so our subscribers can get the best of both worlds. We have almost 100 channels broadcast on the cable and satellite platform. With a hybrid box we can add on the on-demand elements of IPTV as value-added services. We don’t need to duplicate transmissions. We don’t need to have our bouquets on IPTV. They should be seamless to subscribers.”
    Along with new services, a change in government regulations also will benefit TrueVisions, Ongard said. “Pay-TV in Thailand is allowed to have advertising now,” he said. “There are laws that will bring local cable operators into line. They will have to apply for a license and pay government fees and income tax. Everybody is getting closer in terms of paying the same fees. That would excite the market. We will see more channels in the market. We will see investment in this area. The content market will expand. From a business point of view, there is the potential for the DTH platform to expand its subscriber base.”

Other Business Ventures
    TrueVisions launches personal video recorder (PVR) services in March and hopes to add 4,000 to 5,000 subscribers to the service by the end of 2008, said Ongard. “That is the first milestone we are looking to achieve. We are definitely the first to provide PVR services in Thailand. We saw there are opportunities for our premium customers to have this type of service,” he said.
    The operator also is looking to move into mobile TV, and sister company TrueMove is testing the model with some of its reality TV. However, Ongard is more cautious about the potential of this market. “As the technology improves on the mobile side, or we see there is an opportunity on the DVB-H (digital video broadcast-handheld) side for Thailand,” he said. “We are in the best position to deliver that content onto the mobile phone. I am not sure how soon we might be doing that commercially. The technology is already here. We need to look at the market components from a commercial point of view. We are seeing how people consume content on mobile. There are many other markets in Asia which did not really fly in this area.”
    Mobile Broadcasting Corp., a subsidiary of Toshiba Corp., announced in July that it will stop mobile digital satellite broadcasting services at the end of March. The service never met the expected subscriber numbers, due in part to competition from free terrestrial broadcasting services, Toshiba said.
    “There has not been a commercially viable model coming from various countries in Asia. Thailand would be the same,” said Ongard. “We would really like to know that the model has been proven from a consumer point of view. I think commercially we have to look at how consumers are adopting this content. Today, there is no viable commercial model in the next 12 to 18 months for these services in Asia.”