AIS chief executive officer Somchai Lertsutiwong announced yesterday that the company would initially spend Bt20 billion this year on the installation of its 4G network at 7,000 sites in 42 provinces.

A company source said AIS was currently awaiting board approval to spend an additional Bt20 billion on the 4G network in the middle of this year, which would give it a total of 14,000 sites in 72 provinces.

Somchai said the Bt20 billion earmarked to be spent on expanding the 3G network would result in the company covering 27,000 3G sites nationwide.

AIS, meanwhile, is hopeful of signing a partnership deal with TOT during the current quarter to provide 3G service jointly on the state agency’s 2.1GHz spectrum, Somchai said.

AIS subsidiary Advanced Wireless Network (AWN) currently offers 3G service on 2.1GHz under the National Broadcasting and Telecommunica-tions Commission (NBTC) licensing regime.

It won an 1,800MHz licence in the auction held by the regulator in November.

Somchai said AWN’s present spectrum portfolio was enough to provide a quality service to customers.

AIS has a total of 38 million mobile subscribers, of which 20 million are active users of mobile data service. Of the 20 million, more than 10 million are expected to use 4G service this year.

AWN announced the official launch of 4G services from yesterday under the name AIS 4G Advanced, with a service area starting with 42 provinces covering each of the country’s regions, plus full-speed packages and a wide range of 4G service centres. The company targets full coverage in every province by May.

After winning a 1,800MHz licence in November, the company has been conducting early trials since last month.

“After we were awarded an 1,800MHz licence from the NBTC on November 25, we went full throttle in accelerating our network expansion along with the development of the fastest services in every aspect, via a Bt14.52-billion budget.

“Then we started inviting certain customers to get the first touches on their 4G experience in December,” Somchai said.

AIS and True Corp each won a 1,800MHz licence in the November auction, while True and Jasmine International each secured a 900MHz licence in the ensuing NBTC auction last month.

Total Access Communication (DTAC) has already launched 4G on 1,800MHz, under a CAT Telecom concession.

As AIS failed to win a 900MHz licence, it is rushing to migrate its 12 million 2G customers on 900MHz to AWN by offering them subsidised handsets.

It has already migrated a million of these users to AWN.

The 900MHz spectrum previously belonged to AIS under a TOT concession. After its concession ended last September, the NBTC put the spectrum up for auction.

Somchai declined to comment when asked whether AIS was in talks with Jasmine International to allow its 2G customers to roam with the latter’s 900MHz service. He said AIS had paid a combined concession fee of Bt180 billion to TOT during its operation under the state agency’s concession over the past 25 years.

Pratthana Leelapanang, executive vice president for marketing at AIS, yesterday said the company had taken this opportunity to launch the largest full-scale mobile entertainment application centre – AIS Play – from which subscribers could access 100 TV channels for live and recorded viewing, movies from a number of famous Thai and foreign producers, series from Hollywood, sports, cartoons and karaoke, among other offerings.