NBTC secretary-general Takorn Tantasith said yesterday that the NBTC had already finished the final draft.

Each slot will feature a 10MHz bandwidth.

The licence term will be 15 years and the licence payment can be divided into 10 instalments.

The NBTC had earlier planned to sell the slots with each totalling 15MHz bandwidth.

Telecom operators who win the licences will start paying for the slots next October.

The slots will be put on sale on June 19 and proceeds from the sales will be used to compensate the six digital TV broadcasters who last week informed the NBTC their intention to return their broadcasting licences.

The NBTC will hold a public hearing on the draft of the regulation of the 700MHz allocation on May 22.

The NBTC wants the telecom operators to provide 5G wireless broadband service on the 700MHz band.

The sales of these three slots is related to the junta’s launch of the relief measures last month to ease the financial burden of the three 900MHz telecom operators.

Under the relief measures, the NBTC will split the total upfront licence fee for the 900MHz spectrum of the three licence holders into 10 instalments, giving them more time to make payments from the current four instalments.

However, the junta’s relief measures include a condition that makes it mandatory for any of 900MHz licence holders availing the relief measures to purchase the NBTC’s 700MHz spectrum slots, which will be up for sale on June 19.

See terms and conditions

The licence holders can inform the NBTC that they want to avail of the junta’s relief measures but can later opt not to buy the 700MHz licence slots.

However, they would lose the longer instalment facility if they do not buy the slots and would have to pay as per the original payment schedule.

All the three operators have informed the NBTC their interest to avail of the junta’s relief measures, but they want to see the terms and conditions of the 700MHz licence sales first before making a final decision on whether to purchase the 700MHz licences.

The NBTC has a total of 45MHz of the 700MHz bandwidth. After selling the 30MHz, it is expected to auction the remaining 15MHz next April.

The NBTC will also auction the 2600MHz band, the 26GHz and 28GHz bands in October this year, and the remaining 35MHz bandwidth of 1800MHz band totalling seven slots next April.

The market for digital signage is rapidly expanding. With the spread of high-speed internet and a reduction in installation costs, the electronic devices can be set up at various places consumers can easily spot.

Digital signage is also expected to provide information on tourism and disaster prevention.

In March, Panasonic Corp. and affiliated firms of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Inc. set up 49-inch digital signage screens above electricity transformer boxes on the streets near JR Omiya Station in Saitama. The devices run video clips about local tourism spots and emergency evacuation places. The companies are conducting a test together with the Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry and the Saitama municipal government, using cameras installed on the devices to find out how passersby respond to different types of information.

As more utility poles are removed to install electric wires underground, electricity transformers are often set up on sidewalks. Currently, it is prohibited to place advertisements on transformers, but the ministry will look into whether the regulation should be relaxed nationwide based on the findings of the test.

Digital signage has long been used for large screens in baseball stadiums and billboards on buildings. In recent years, it has come to be used in a wider variety of places, such as trains, shops and taxis. Behind the expansion lies the availability of thin high-resolution screens, falling prices of related equipment and technical improvements including spread of high-speed internet. Allowing such devices on transformers would further increase places to install them.

Digital signage is increasingly used for providing information on tourism and disaster prevention, because it can handle a large amount of data. The Tokyo metropolitan government, for example, plans to install about 150 digital signage devices to provide such information in fiscal 2019, in the run-up to next year’s Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics.

Capitalizing on this demand, NEC Corp. developed an advanced streetlight in 2018. In addition to illumination, the device can also provide disaster information in English and Chinese such as evacuation guidance based on the amount of traffic at that time. The company aims to install the product around competition venues.

Although initial investment is costly, digital signage enables instant information updates, expected to reduce labor and other costs in the long run. Major home appliance retailer Biccamera Inc. introduced digital price tags on the shelves for all products at its outlet opened in Machida, Tokyo, in February. Price tags can be changed all at once, which “helps reduce working hours” of the outlet’s workers, according to a Biccamera public relations officer.

According to estimates by Fuji Chimera Research Institute Inc., the digital signage market is expected to expand to ¥318.6 billion in 2025, more than double the ¥143.7 billion seen in 2017. “Digital signage, which can run real-time information, will further evolve with the use of artificial intelligence, among other technologies,” said the company’s senior researcher Eigo Yamada.

IBM’s quantum ambassador, Robert Loredo, recently met staff at the National Electronics and Computer Technology Centre (Nectec) to ask what the company could do to help Thailand solve problems through  quantum computing and advise how the Kingdom could benefit from its quantum hub partner in Asia.

Loredo, who was also promoting the IBM Q system and IBM Q Network while on the trip, explained to The Nation Weekend that the quantum computer allows for more collaboration than does the classic computer system. It can computer many things not possible through using the classic computer and is able to get results much faster because of the increased quantum speed.

“In what areas the quantum computer can help is something we are open to,” said Loredo. “Because right now IBM has been working with different partners in different industries such as intelligent offices, chemistry, finance, automation and energy. For example, it announced partnerships with Exxon Mobil, and is also looking for partners in finance and portfolio management, logistics, transportation, sales and engineering.”

The company is now in the quantum-ready phase, he said. “We have three different phases, including the quantum foundation phase, which was generally started back in 1920, that developed quantum mechanics and quantum physics theory. That was kind of a build-up of all the information we needed to produce a quantum computer,” said Loredo.

He said  IBM released its first quantum computer in May 2016, created on the cloud and available to everyone for free. With that it kicked off the era called “quantum ready” and released a 5 qubits (pronounced CUE-bit) system and a 16 qubits system that everyone can have access to on the cloud.

“Whatever you can do there is [based on] understanding the quantum principle that we use that is a part of quantum computing – how to use them to come up with either an algorithm or any other kinds of features and problems they want to solve,” said Loredo.

The two main features that it uses from quantum mechanic principles are “super procession” and “entanglement”. Super procession refers to the variation from the basic stage of physical classic computers that has a 0 and a 1. In quantum computer, it the stages are 0, 1, and a combination of both. So, it has the ability to calculate a lot more things and faster.

The second quantum mechanical principle of entanglement refers to the use of multiple qubits; two or more qubits entangle to share a combination of information.

“When you calculate one piece you take a measurement, you can use information in other qubits to calculate a lot of things,” said Loredo.

Those two main features of quantum computing can be used to advantage in the third phase. The computer is large enough and the algorithm is much more coherent and so is able to run and produce particular solutions that are not possible on the classic computer.

The drivers of mass adoption of quantum computing are found in many areas, such as the needs of logistics and traffic. For example, in Thailand traffic is a big enough concern.

IBM has met with Nectec, to seek the best approach to introducing quantum technology to Thailand. IBM has its Q Network featuring different partners, with one partner, Keio University, serving as the first Q Hub in Asia.

Keio is working with IBM to help organisations explore quantum applications important to business and science, while at the same time introducing the technology to the next generation of scientists.

The university has spent the past several months bringing together members of its team, which include students working alongside scientists with expertise in quantum chemistry, financial modelling, quantum encryption and security, and other areas to determine which algorithms may be most useful.

The students and researchers are also learning how to map their algorithms to qubits on the quantum chip and writing programs that can run efficiently, which reduces the amount of time in which errors can occur while a program is running.

Nectec in Thailand is working directly with Keio University on different research projects. Along with Keio University and IBM Q Network, it is looking at the potential for building a quantum ecosystem  in Thailand that could spread to Singapore, China, Japan and elsewhere.

Startups in focus

“We also are looking for partners who are interested in using quantum computing. One of our key partners is startups. A lot of startups have come with their ideas and projects to work with the IBM Q team on hardware and software to access and use the IBM Q system,” said Loredo.

He invited any startups, universities, or companies to join and partner with the IBM Q Network.

“We are in the early stage of quantum computers; there are so many stages of quantum computing ‘ready’ phases,” he said. “We call it a ‘ready’ phase since we need to prepare a lot things. We need to move to the quantum advantage phase. It is to have a system the can demonstrate and speed up the classic computer or compute something on a quantum machine that cannot be done on a big classic computer. To be able to move from the current phase to the quantum advantage phase is open. There is so much research going on right now that anyone can come in to join.”

Most of the IBM Q Network is at universities, because they obviously want to accelerate the research and to educate people about what quantum computing can do for research and business, said Loredo.

“Universities can understand technology and can teach and present those particular skills to people at any level, including the university level, high school level and post-graduate level.”

However, IBM Q Network is partnering with early adopters, innovative organisations, by offering access to IBM’s quantum computing systems through the cloud.

Only through this exchange of ideas, research and testing will quantum computing reach its full potential, powering breakthroughs that lead to new medicines and materials as well as advanced business and financial models.  Partners include automaker Daimler, which has a broad interest in how quantum computing can impact everything, from the optimisation of transportation logistics, to predictions about future materials for electric mobility, which is based on well-functioning cell chemistry within vehicle batteries.

JP Morgan Chase is researching how quantum computing can improve trading strategies, improve client portfolios and better-analyse financial risk.

The European Laboratory for Particle Physics (CERN) is working with IBM to explore how quantum computing can advance scientific understanding of the universe.

Recently, IBM announced the expansion of the IBM Q Network to include a number of global universities.

The universities intend to partner with IBM to accelerate joint research in quantum computing, and develop curricula to help prepare students for careers across science and business that will be influenced by this next era of computing.

For example, Florida State University, the University of Notre Dame, Virginia Tech, Stony Brook University, and the University of Tokyo will have direct access as academic partners to IBM Q’s quantum computing systems for teaching, and for faculty and student research projects that advance quantum information science and explore early applications.

The move is in order to help leverage the future industrial benefits from artificial intelligence, Big Data, machine learning and blockchain. Potential benefits could abound, for example, in pharmaceuticals, weather forecasting, traffic and marketing.

Sarun Sumriddetchkajorn, a senior researcher at Nectec, said that quantum is a major focus of the centre, particularly through using quantum computing in a complementary way with the classic super computer. That combination is expected to lead the future computing era, he said.

Nectec’s role is to collaborate with research institutes and universities in both education and raising awareness of the impact of quantum computing technology, and also to prepare the human resources needed for this area.

“Currently, there are around 10 researchers across universities deeply studying quantum computing technology. We are working together on how to help the country could benefit from the technology,” said Sarun. Kanin Aungskunsiri, a photonics technology laboratory researcher at Nectec, immersed in studying quantum technology. He said quantum computing could help with processing huge data volumes, something that the classical super computer cannot do quickly. He cited the design of drug formulas, weather forecasting and real traffic forecasting, as areas that would benefit.

Nectec’s related research is mainly concerned with quantum engineering, as it is fundamental for further quantum commercial applications. Currently, Nectec is also working on developing the prototype for quantum cryptography.

He said Nectec is in talks with IBM regarding the context and model of IBM support it needs. The computing giant offers several kinds of support in quantum computing technology, such as hub, partner, member, academic, and startup that allows access to different layers.

Through a partnership with the National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA), Nectec along with IBM Thailand and Mitr Phol are working to transform sugarcane farming into precision farming in order to increase the yields of one of the country’s most economically important crops.

Under that collaboration, Nectec can access and utilise the IBM PAIRS Geoscope, which is a platform specifically designed for massive geospatial-temporal data (maps, satellite imagery, weather, drones, IoT) related to query and analytics services.

PAIRS enables users to tap this vast and valuable source of often underutilised information to complement and contextualise their data, enable or enhance their applications, and develop, test and refine their models.

Recently, Nectec also joined hands with Mahidol University to establish the Collaborative Research Unit on Quantum Information.

Artima Suraphongchai, head of marketing for iflix Thailand, said that the company launched iflix 3.0 in the fourth quarter of 2018 in a bid to improve the business model of freemium with ads and iflix VIP.

The company’s price start with a flat rate of Bt100 a month and reach Bt1,000 a year.

In late 2018, iflix switched from subscription video on demand (SVOD) to the freemium service, to offer iflix streaming that allow users to watch some content for free with advertisements, including pre-roll and mid-roll ads.

Iflix now offers an AVOD model, for ad video on demand.

“This change is a result of feedback we got from users who mostly are familiar with free watching with ads, rather than paying for subscription even when it is only Bt100 per month,” said Artima.

It turned iflix from the subscription model to the freemium model. People who not willing to pay can still enjoy watching content on iflix. But free content is less than 30 per cent of its total content of 40,000 hours.

“It needs time educate users to pay for content with freemium model,” said Artima.

If they do not want to see ads, they just pay for the service with the iflix VIP service, priced at Bt100 a month or Bt1,000 a year.

The company has increased the amount of content, including live TV and live content across categories such as lifestyle, sport and music.

“We need encourage a lot more people to engage with iflix. In the past, iflix had only long-form content, especially two-hour movies and series. Last year, we increased snap content, with different length of content such as 1 minute, 2 minutes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, and 15 minutes. Now we have a lot of short-form content,” said Artima.

Apart from variety of content lengths, she said, people need content immediately. So, it has increase the news and live content, such as for sports matches and for concerts or events as well. All such moves are aimed at increasing the users’ stickiness with iflix.

iflix serves more than 10 markets in Asia and 12 in the Middle East. For content strategy, Artima said, it does not yet offer original content production in Thailand. But it does so in Indonesia, the Philippines, and Malaysia, where the company has local partners to develop such content, including movie, series and documentaries.

Recently, iflix has been received investments, including from Yoshimoto Kogyo, Japan’s largest entertainment conglomerate.

This is Yoshimoto Kogyo’s first investment in overseas media, and it hopes that this will accelerate development for future projects in Asia.

The two companies also announced the formation of an exclusive joint venture in Singapore to showcase Yoshimoto Group’s most popular content across iflix’s territories in Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, and the corresponding distribution of iflix’s content in Japan.

The joint venture will also produce localised versions of proven content formats out of Japan, to significantly expand iflix’s original content offering.

The content to be provided to iflix will be popular Japanese programs that will be localised for Asian countries – including animation, drama, movies, variety, and comedy. In the future, it hopes to develop all-Japanese original content including programs and films for an Asian market. The joint venture underscores iflix’s growing focus on developing and creating what it calls highly engaging hyper-local programming aimed mostly at millennials and members of Generation Z. Most of these customers come from emerging and developing markets in Southeast Asia.

Moreover, JTBC, a South Korean media company, through its content distribution arm, JTBC Content Hub, has become a strategic investor in iflix.

Through this alliance, iflix will distribute JTBC’s premium content across Asia, setting the stage for further collaborations that may include co-productions in iflix

markets.

JTBC has built its reputation as the source of South Korea’s youth-centric content that embraces new formats. With its dramas, the company has made history for tackling complex and controversial themes, as well as setting viewership records in South Korea.

“Zero Friction Future”, reports results from a Boston Consulting Group (BCG) survey of 1,200 Thai consumers who purchased products or services either online or offline in key verticals such as e-commerce, retail and financial services. It found 90 per cent of consumer respondents encounter friction at each phase of their journey, and 50 per cent of them drop off once they encounter it.

The report estimates the annual opportunity cost of friction in Asia-Pacific at $325 billion, including $14 billion for Thailand.

The study shows that key industries like e-commerce, retail and financial services could grow their annual revenue by $2.63 billion, $2.08 billion and $127 million respectively if the problems were removed.

The report recommends that businesses embrace digital technologies and introduce a circular framework that is closer to a customer’s real-life experience.

John Wagner, country director of Facebook Thailand, said that it is common for businesses today to advertise their products and services online. The challenge is how businesses can evolve their digital practices to catch consumers’ ever-changing needs and expectations.

Thai businesses should create an omnichannel experience for their consumers’ purchase journeys, using tools such as News Feed personalisation, dynamic and collaborative advertisements, Instagram and its Stories feature, and Messenger for continued customer conversations, said the Facebook manager.

The problem of friction at each stage of the sales cycle highlights the significant role that solutions from Facebook could play in facilitating a seamless consumer purchase journey in Thailand, he said.

“We are determined to help business in Thailand to overcome these challenges. The insights from our “Zero Friction Future” report will help Thai businesses design more relevant marketing strategies, which can help them reduce friction in consumers’ paths to purchase and consequently increase sales,” said Wagner.

By 2020, over half of the connected world will be making purchases online and 85 per cent of customer interactions will be handled without a human. In 2017, around 4 per cent of Thailand’s GDP was derived from digital products and services created directly through the use of digital technologies, and digital transformation will add an estimated $9 billion (Bt282 billion) to Thailand’s GDP by 2021.

He highlighted the 3 million businesses advertising on Stories across Facebook, Instagram and Messenger every month. In-stream video advertising remains a promising asset for Thai brands, he said. Facebook Watch continues to grow locally, with Thailand a leading country for watch times on the service.

Mark Roughley, chief customer officer of Tesco Lotus Thailand, said that retail is changing rapidly, and constantly. Customers are shopping in multiple channels and the more seamless the experience they get with the brand, the more likely they are going to shop with it, he said.

“At Tesco, we provide customers with a range of online-offline solutions ranging from a bar code scanner to mobile app to make the journey as simple as possible. Solutions from Facebook help us reach more of our target audience and provide them relevant experiences that answer their needs with speed,” said Roughley.

The initiative is a component in the collaboration between Asean Foundation and Microsoft Asia-Pacific, which aims to enhance the technological skills of teachers and educators as part of preparing Thais for the digital-economy era.

The teacher-training event was also attended by volunteers from Coder Dojo, a club for young computing programmers. They provided in-class support and advice to the teachers.

Dhanawat Suthumpun, managing director for Microsoft (Thailand), said the tech giant believes technology can be a force for social and economic inclusion. Equipping young people with digital skills increases their economic opportunities, while also addressing the talent shortage faced by industries as they digitally transform.

Microsoft Thailand contributes to the regional Asean Digital Innovation’ programme dedicated to driving the economic growth of the Asean bloc.

Chailerd Pichitpornchai, director of the Institute for Innovative Learning at Mahidol University, said that one of the key roles of his body is to provide academic and knowledge management services for society, in order to improve the capabilities of teachers in developing and managing a more effective curriculum.

The Python Programming session reflects the Institute’s mission, he said.

“This training will both equip teachers with the digital skills and extend the boundaries of their imagination, which can be developed and leveraged for the benefit of Thai youth in the future,” said Chailerd.

By the end of 2019, Microsoft is committed to organising digital training sessions for 500 teachers and 50,000 students across Thailand, in a drive to enhance their potential for creativity and critical thinking along with their digital skills.

Wuttichai Kanhar, a participant teacher from Banphaeowittaya (Teetong) School in Samut Sakhon province, is concerned that traditional computer science education focuses on teaching children to remember theories and learn only from books. That approach can lead to an inefficient thinking process that makes for a poor fit for what they will learn in future careers.

Passing on knowledge 

“As a teacher in the 4.0 era, I try to always look for ways to gain new knowledge to pass on to my students, and I feel that by learning the modern Python computing language, they will not only be equipped with additional digital skills, but also get to develop their critical thinking and problem-solving skills. If we enable them to truly understand this process at the execution level, they will certainly be able to use the skills in other subjects and their careers in the future,” said Wuttichai.

Kanjana Sittirattanayuenyong, a participant teacher from Prakhonchai Pittayakhon School in  Buri Ram province, said she had no Python programming skills before the course, but with the programming language now incorporated into the curriculum by the Ministry of Education, she realised the importance of developing them.

“I plan to pass on the knowledge I gained from this training to my students, starting from teaching them the basics in Python programming, before enabling them to develop their own projects for a hands-on experience,” said Kanjana.

The Asean Digital Innovation Programme aims to reach 46,000 underserved youth in seven Asean countries – Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines and Vietnam – and to equip them with digital skills that enable them to thrive in the fourth industrial revolution.

To achieve this objective, local partners from each of the seven countries will be brought in to deliver capacity building workshops for over 500 educators by harnessing specifically developed learning modules.

HEWLETT Packard is among the top tech companies with women and underrepresented minorities in executive positions. Some 30 per cent of HP executives are women.

In Thailand, two women lead the two major business units of HP, including PCs and printers. They are Varanit Athijaratroj, country category manager of print and Pattariya Pattarakorn, country category manager of personal systems.

Pattariya said the company applies mega trends to shed light on the demands of future consumers and employees, and identify future areas of growth – all to help propel businesses into a new era of productivity, innovation and economic opportunity.

The company’s approach is to meet users’ needs through a variety of innovations. Much of these centre on workers’ desire for freedom of movement and to work from wherever they want, whenever they want.

“We are succeeding in our focus on innovation, which is evident by the delivery of continued growth in areas such as PC, print and services, as well as emerging growth areas like VR and 3D printing,” said Pattariya.

The overview of HP’s strategy and PC innovation is focused on three areas – core, growth and future.

“Our innovation strategy is completely aligned with making lives better through technology for everyone, everywhere. It is about developing solutions that are relevant to our customers’ needs and addressing them in an era of constant change,” said Pattariya.

HP’s PC gaming segment is a huge growth area. With its reinvention of the entire Omen portfolio – from design and form-factor to engineering and performance – it aims to help gamers dominate the game, to be the best they can possibly be and to let nothing hold them back from their personal goals. “Designed with security in mind, HP offers hardware enforced, self-healing, manageable solutions to protect, detect and recover from cyberthreats and attacks,” said Pattariya. “These solutions include the HP SureSence, HP Sure Recover and HP Sure Start that provide holistic protection that can help increase security, minimise downtime and prevent costly security breaches.”

The reinvention is “increasing the connected mobile workforce and [attracting the] younger demographics and is also a call-out on design to address the local Thai market needs. HP’s reinvention design is exemplified across our PC’s with an all-premium line-up,” she added.

Meanwhile, both virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies have the potential to grow with commercialisation with boarding width network. HP offers a unified commercial approach for VR, to help businesses reduce concept to production cycle times, improve training procedures and deliver fully immersive customer experiences.

HP workstations are also used in designing 3D models, creating sophisticated CGI and VR models. Workstation-based VR consumption platforms include the new Z VR.

The use cases for VR include military field training and simulation in dangerous environments, design visualisation to shorten development cycles and healthcare, where it could be used during medical procedures to improve realism in critical fields.

Business of transformation

Varanit said the three main priorities for the company’s print business include reigniting the home, disrupting the office, and transforming graphics.

Underpinning the priorities are two main factors that are informing their business plans moving forward – design matters and service business models.

Beginning with Tango, HP has completely upended its approach to designing printers for both the home and the office. They have also fundamentally changed the functionality of printers to become much “smarter” and app-based devices.

HP has developed a new product called HP Neverstop. Aimed at emerging markets, this is a syringe-based refill device whereby customers can re-fill their own ink and toner at a lower cost, thereby blunting the negative impact of the clone market.

For the SMB market, HP is offering OfficeJet Pro & Jet Advantage with the “Smart Task” feature, aimed to solve the productivity needs of many small businesses.

Then there are the JetAdvantage printers for the enterprise level, and the fact that there are over 200 developers working on apps to improve workflow and other needs of major commercial enterprises.

“We are reinventing our business for new ways to think about printing and to realise the opportunity for print in the future. We are bringing disruptive technologies that enable today’s workforce and capture more printed pages,” said Varanit.

Other potential strategic initiatives and offerings for the commercial and home-user space include managed print services, digitisation opportunities and security.

“We are focused on technologies for home-users that are designed for our mobile, digital and social lives in mind, to reinvent memories that can be shared and held onto,” said Varanit.

Recently, the company launched a marquee project, the HP Print Subscription, in Thailand. It’s the first model of its kind from HP available in Southeast Asia region and follows a simple three-step process.

The project is targeted at procurement managers focused on cost optimisation, office managers driven by always-on efficiency and productivity and business managers keen on long-term, sustainable business investments.

This allows SMBs to get customised, affordable, convenient and flexible access to printing based on their specific business needs without an up-front investment in the cost of an office printer.

And to address lifestyle photography, Varanit points to the launch of the HP Sprocket and Sprocket Plus, which has allowed the company to reinvent what people are capable of creating through personalised printing.

“We’re helping our customers reinvent photo-taking, reinvent connections and reinvent memories. Sprocket app enables our customers to scan, copy, send and print – all straight from a mobile device.

“The app also enables our customers to customise their favourite memories with frames, stickers, phrases and more. We’re constantly pushing new features live to the app, further driving the personalisation features,” said Varanit.