AIS: Creating a Digital Life Experience with Smart Mesh Networking

Thailand has a population of nearly 70 million, with about 10.36 million fixed-home broadband users and 48% fixed-line penetration. Its average fixed broadband speed is 125 Mbps, slightly lower than that in developed countries such as the United States and France. In terms of both penetration and speed, the development level of fixed broadband in Thailand is close to the first-tier market.
AIS is the largest mobile operator in Thailand, and its mobile services account for about 50% of the Thai market. Guided by a vision of becoming the most respected digital provider in Thailand, AIS is dedicated to offering superior products and services that deliver an optimal experience to boost customer intimacy. To provide users with high-quality services in both mobile and fixed networks, AIS started to build FTTx networks at the end of 2014 and launched its fixed network operation under the brand “AIS Fiber” in 2015. In only five years, AIS has developed more than one million fixed broadband users, rapidly becoming the fourth largest fixed-line operator in Thailand.

Pain Points in the Last 10 Meters
AIS designed multiple packages, with each enjoying a different service level agreement (SLA). In practice, however, users often reported problems like poor signal, low speed, video stutter, and high gaming latency. A thorough investigation by AIS found that such users usually lived in a villa or large apartment, which could hardly be covered in its entirety by the one Wi-Fi access point (AP) offered by a common service package. Although mesh solutions for this scenarios were available in the market, they are expensive and difficult for ordinary users to install and maintain.
Therefore AIS decided to make a bold attempt at smart mesh networking solutions. Such a move would allow it to do the testing and inspection, ensure the high quality of Wi-Fi APs, and offer professional deployment and after-sales services. With these benefits, AIS could provide users with ultimate experience in the last 10 meters of broadband access. 

Smart Mesh Networking Solution
Optical line terminals (OLTs) and optical network units (ONUs) on AIS's network came from mainstream vendors such as ZTE, and the home section of the network was mostly deployed in 1+1 mode (one bridge ONU and one Wi-Fi AP). To implement its smart mesh networking solution, AIS only needed to purchase mesh APs.
AIS enlisted ZTE to build an FTTx network in 2014 after years of deep cooperation in mobile network deployment. When AIS requested proposals to supply its smart mesh networking project in 2019, ZTE provided the ZXHN H198A AP. The product employs an in-house mesh solution to enable superior performance, deep customization and flexible management, helping AIS reduce Capex and Opex through the following features:
—Low investment cost. The ZXHN H198A can be used as a master AP or a slave AP.  When deploying a network, AIS only needs to add AP without replacing the existing ONU in the user home. This scheme reduces device costs by around 40% compared with replacing the in-service ONU with a new all-in-one unit. 
—Good coverage. The ZXHN H198A supports both "1+1" and "1+N" application scenarios, which means that the number of APs can be determined according to the area of user home. The APs are intelligently networked to cover every corner of the home, thereby improving user satisfaction and reducing the complaint rate. The good coverage also cuts truck rolls and slashes AIS's cost in network maintenance.
—Easy operation and maintenance. All mesh APs of ZTE can be remotely managed through its in-house auto configuration server/session traversal utilities for NAT (ACS/STUN) solution. Configurations and services are automatically delivered to APs without the need to deploy a new network management platform. With the flexible remote management of APs, AIS can further bring down its Capex.
AIS commercially launched its smart Mesh networking solution in September 2019, becoming the first operator in Thailand to commercialize such products.

Creating a New Digital Life Experience
AIS's smart mesh networking solution, i.e. the "Super Mesh" package, was widely favored by users after its rollout. The flexibility of the solution allows engineers to customize a deployment scheme based on the layout of the home to ensure that the entire residence is blanketed in Wi-Fi. Within half a year of the solution's launch, AIS solved the Wi-Fi coverage problem for tens of thousands of homes in Thailand.
The "Super Mesh" package enables millisecond roaming handover between mesh APs and delivers a 70% improvement in performance over the other solutions on the market. It ensures that voice, video and gaming services are not interrupted in the handover process and are imperceptible to users. It also delivers a concurrent throughput of at least 500 Mbps for both uplink and downlink to meet the high bandwidth needs of ordinary home users while reducing the latency of multiple concurrent service streams, thus providing a superior user experience.
After AIS launched the "Super Mesh" package, other operators in Thailand have followed suit and successively carried out bidding, testing, and commercial use of smart mesh networking solutions. 
As a latecomer, AIS is playing an increasingly important role in Thailand's fixed home broadband market. In 2020, it became the first operator in Thailand to make Wi-Fi 6 technology a priority of strategic planning and asked several vendors including ZTE to provide customized prototype for testing. The prototype provided by ZTE supports the Wi-Fi 6 technology and an in-house mesh solution to enhance performance and coverage. With continuous innovation, AIS is poised to bring a better digital life experience to users in Thailand.