Future of Wap in Thailand

Wireless Application Protocal ( WAP) will have important presence in Thailand.
WAP effectively translates HTML( Hypertext Mark-up Language), the language in which websites are written of, into the different language which can be viewed on mobile phones.
WAP gives many advantages to telecom operators to promote their products and services. For instance Mobile Phone Operator can offer their subscribers with services for Movies Ticket. The Phone operator would be able to provide schedule and information about the movie thru mobile phone, especially the subscriber would be able to purchase a ticket ( by Credit Card )through the WAP phone. Moreover, in some Scandinavian Countries, You would be able to pay for most of the products and services through your mobile phone, the bill would be charged to your mobile phone fee every month.
In comparison, Thailand is quite a relative latecomer for WAP scene. However, this should not be very surprising for the country with very low mobile phone penetration rate. Thailand mobile penetration rate is currently far behind Malaysia, and other developed countries. In any case, we expect the cost of mobile would be driven down by competition which then would cause the penetration rate to grow drastically in a few years down the road..
Recently, the GSM mobile operator, so called AIS , has launched a semi-WAP campaign to capture the Thai early adopter market. The services provide information on many aspects including news, stock quote, airline schedule and others. These services would additionally charge to the subscriber per minute.
However, the real WAP services are not ready yet, the operator argues that since the security of WAP in Thailand do not meet the international standard yet. Moreover, the air-time of browsing internet would exceed 5-10 minutes which would cost the subscriber around THB 15-30. Thus it is not yet attractive enough for subscriber to browse the web via WAP. So most of the mobile operator do not have any specific focus on WAP at the moment yet. However, we expect that the air time per minute of mobile usage would come down to reach the similar level of Internet access fee. By that time, consumer would see no different in pricing, but see the WAP benefits of convenience, flexibility and others. We expect that WAP would be a big craze in a very near future, The early WAP mover would have advantages over its competitor, however, in this case, given no support from Mobile phone operator seems to be very tough road for them to survive in WAP market.

The article is composed by one of Siamweb columnist The opinion expressed are on his own. Siamwe shall hold no responsibility towards the damages or indirect damages associated with the article above