Asia's online and its doing fine......

I concluded one of my Quarterly Review trips to the Hyro Thailand office this week and one of the things which resonated during this trip was the great progress that is being made in terms of connectivity and bandwidth in that market.

We recently renegotiated a contract with our corporate internet provider and were able to double the speed of our connection, raise the committed data rate and cut the costs of our connection by around 35%. All because the general quality of service has increased and the market is getting more and more competitive.

It doesn’t stop there – many hotels in Bangkok now offer free in-room broadband internet for business travellers and the number of accessible wi-fi spots has risen dramatically over the last twelve months or so (I got to test this with my new phone – the outstanding HTC Touch which is the easiest wi-fi phone to connect to the internet that I have ever used. Oh, and it is a very functional and very pretty business phone as well!).

This augers well for the digital services industry. General statistics of levels of internet use, levels of available bandwidth and levels of commerce and advertising via digital channels are all trending upwards. It proves our experience in more mature markets – that the level and availability of broadband speeds define the critical “tipping point” for digital services adoption.

Even in emerging digital services markets, we are seeing how connected technology and changing marketing techniques are changing the world.