PHUKET (WiMAX Day). From the deck of the the Royal Phuket Yacht Club on Nai Harn Beach, the square-rigged cutter that last week made its way upwind to Patong Beach was unusual. While more than one kilometre away, it was clear that the boat was not out for a casual cruise.

Upon close scrutiny, the sails of the boat sported the letters UIH, which for anyone in the telecommunications business in Thailand, was understood to represent United Information Highway, the high-speed data communications and fibre optics network provider.

UIH is a joint venture between Benchachinda Holding Co and CAT Telecom. Benchachinda controls, among other assets, DTAC, the main GSM network in Thailand. CAT manages THIX (Thailand Internet Exchange Service).

This was the maiden voyage of WiMAX in Phuket, the sun-drenched Shangri-La by the sea in Thailand. UIH inaugurated its first trial of WiMAX last week by connecting its way-faring crew with a base station docked 1.5 kilometres away at the Meridien Phuket Beach Resort.

The trial is the first of many tests that UIH will make over the next three months. The company holds a trial 2.5 GHz license which it was granted by Thailand’s National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) last year to perform testing. The country has yet to form a successor to the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC), and until then, will not issue licenses for WiMAX frequencies.

“UIH is still waiting for the clear direction and authorization from The National Telecommunications Commission in order to provide the [WiMAX] service in the future,” said a company press release.

According to Vichai Bencharongkul, the managing director of Benchachinda Holding and former CEO of DTAC, UIH plans to invest 100 million Baht (USD 3.2 million) to bring WiMAX to the island of Phuket, where telephony and broadband services are limited. “The company foresees an opportunity in tourism, especially the island area of Phuket…which have high speed broadband access limitations,” Mr Vichai said in a prepared statement.

The target audience in Phuket is primarily for corporate users, tourists, hotels and resorts, as well as for back-haul to ISPs providing WiFi. The company indicated that when it receives a license, it will also deploy WiMAX in Bangkok and other cities of Thailand.

The result of the trial in Phuket showed that users can connect to the Internet with bandwidth of more than 8 Mbps. The trial employed tests of both mobile and fixed WiMAX services. Participants in the trial included Motorola and Intel.