Thailand's largest mobile operator Advanced Info Service (AIS) this week launched the WiFi Calling service. The service will initially be supported over selected iPhone models - iPhone 5s, 5c, 6, 6 Plus, 6s, 6s Plus and the iPhone SE's Android, allowing AIS customers to call and receive calls over Wi-Fi using their existing phone numbers.
The calling rates for the service is as per normal packages. In addition to calling, AIS customers can also send and receive SMSs.
The WiFi Calling service will be complementatry to AIS's 4G, providing better in-building coverage to its customers.
To support growth in mobile data traffic, the operator said that it plans to increase the number of its WiFi hotspots from 120,000 to 160,000 this year and to further expand it to 200,000 by 2017 - an effort to offload more data traffic from its cellular network and to cater for the growth. AIS aims to have more than 10 million 4G subscribers by the end of 2016, compared with 7 million at present.
