AIS, Thailand's largest mobile operator, is accelerating the deployment of the 5G network to boost the country's capabilities in the digital economy despite challenges arising from the pandemic. Wasit Wattanasap, EVP and Head of Nationwide Operation and Support Business Unit at AIS, talks about the company's growth strategy during the pandemic, way to 5G innovation, and the world's first 5G NR-DC test completed with Qualcomm and ZTE. There has been a stream of collaborations on 5G innovation between AIS and ZTE, and recently they have signed an agreement to to build the first high-level 5G network in Thailand.

What is AIS's growth strategy in consideration of the pandemic's effect?
We anticipated such a crisis at the beginning of the pandemic. Even when there was an emergency state and additional costs with the inflation, different measures have been put in place to allow us to maintain our leadership, such as:
—Reduce the impact on income. We maintain the strong growth of our mobile service business. Even when the revenue growth is lower with rising costs, we keep investing and expanding our network to provide a good user experience and help our customer during this crisis. We have also accelerated the generation of new revenues by growing the corporate customer business, home internet and other digital services, which compensates and helps deliver satisfactory operating results and would make the company stronger in the future.
—Prepare for network infrastructure upgrades for both mobile and fixed broadband services with continuous investments in order to support both general and corporate customers and respond to the digital transformation of different industrial sectors.
—Improve cost control and management by adopting a 100% digital process both within the organization and customer services, with careful consideration on operating costs and new investment planning to enhance quality at reasonable costs.
—Manage liquidity to be prepared for volatile situations that may come with the potential economic crisis.

AIS is developing the smart 5G network. How are you innovating during the implementation?
In fact, before the 5G auction took place in Thailand, AIS was the first in Thailand to test 5G bands with many different use cases. We had collaborated with many partners, including network/device vendors, technology solution providers, global telecom operators, education service providers, business partners to find use cases or innovative applications that are not only for commercial use, but would also bring big changes to the society. This will help usher the economy into the digital age and give Thailand more economic bargaining power.

In March, AIS, Qualcomm and ZTE announced the world's first 5G new radio dual connectivity (NR-DC) showcase for 2.6 GHz and 26 GHz. What kind of impact it will have on the company's business expansion as well as the country's digital landscape?
The main goal of AIS is to continue to develop the 5G smart network as a national infrastructure with an investment budget of 30–35 billion baht. As a licensee holding the most spectrum in low band, mid band, and high band or mmWave, which is outstanding for fast data transmission and low latency, we have never stopped deploying innovations to upgrade the network, including 5G NSA/SA, VoNR and 5G CA, to deliver a better experience for Thai people, which was our intention when we we joined the spectrum auction. 
Continuing to work with global partners ZTE and Qualcomm to jointly test 5G NR-DC technology is a significant step forward. 5G frequency bands 2.6 GHz and 26 GHz are combined for the first time in the world, resulting in a wider signal transmission channel and low latency. With low latency, there could be a good user experience for consumers and future industrial applications such as online game streaming (Cloud Game), autonomous vehicle control as well as remote robot control that can be done in real time. Moreover, this test can also support the development of new mobile chipsets in the future that will make the data transmission faster as well.
This is another advancement in the adoption of 5G mmWave for both commercial and industrial applications. And it reflects very well that AIS is the only service provider that has used its licensed spectrum of every waveband to support the growth of the business sector in various dimensions, including creating changes in the usage behavior of Thai consumers continuously and keeping up with the latest development of Qualcomm, the world's leading chipset provider. This ensures that the AIS 5G network will be ready to respond and support the use of various devices that support the 5G mmWave technology, which are being launched continuously. It is also a great opportunity to support business growth in various dimensions.

What will come next in terms of achievements in AIS's 5G roadmap? What role do you hope technology suppliers like ZTE will take on?
For the development of AIS 5G, the goal is to provide customers with the best network experience for every scenario, whether it is indoor use, data download/upload or even the services with mmWave frequency band, which AIS has the most spectrum resources available.
Therefore, in our roadmap we try to develop innovations for the ultimate customer experience. We expect technology partners to help us to enhance the network experience as well as jointly develop the ecosystem to allow our customers to enjoy the technology.