Thailand coverage

What the Thailand numbers mean

Two numbers matter and only one of them is the one every seller quotes. The typical speed, 52 Mbps, tells you what a good moment looks like.

The tenth percentile, 14 Mbps, is the one that matters. It is the speed in the worst tenth of the day, when the cell above the station is full and everybody around you is on it too. A country with a high median and a low floor is a country that works beautifully right up until the moment you actually need it.

If the trip depends on video calls or tethering, plan around the busy figure rather than the typical one.

What happens in Thailand when the network is busy

Congestion is not a fault, it is a Tuesday evening. The question is what your eSIM can do about it, and for most travel eSIMs the answer is nothing: one wholesale agreement per country, one network, and no way out except buying a second eSIM from somebody else while standing in the street.

Here, Orbislo traffic runs over AIS and TrueMove. When the network you are on degrades we move you to another one, mid trip, without you asking, and tell you afterwards rather than interrupting you at the time.

Mobile operators in Thailand

• AIS: Advanced Info Service reported 47.1 million mobile subscribers at the end of the second quarter of 2026, of whom 19.7 million were 5G users, 1.2 million more than in the first quarter.
• AIS: In its 2025 results AIS said its 5G network covered more than 95 percent of Thailand's population, and it reported a 50 percent market share. New SIM activations on its network go through liveness detection backed by AI identity checks.
• True: True Corporation in its current form dates from 1 March 2023, when dtac and True completed their amalgamation under the True name. The combined company began trading on the Stock Exchange of Thailand on 3 March 2023.
• True: True reported 48.6 million mobile subscribers at the end of the second quarter of 2026 after adding 479,000 in the quarter, and 19.3 million 5G subscribers.
• NT: National Telecom, the state operator, was formed on 7 January 2021 by merging CAT Telecom and TOT. It is wholly owned by the Finance Ministry and inherited more than 25,000 towers, spectrum and undersea cables from the two companies.

Older networks in Thailand

• In July 2025 the NBTC board told AIS and True to submit clear plans to wind up their 2G and 3G networks by the third quarter of 2026, with 2G expected to close first and 3G after it.
• The regulator counted fewer than 3 million SIM cards still using 2G and 3G. Its stated reason for closing them is fraud, since fake base stations exploit weaknesses in the two older systems to send scam text messages.
• Since 30 June 2025 the NBTC no longer allows the import, type approval or certification of devices that support only 2G or 3G, so a handset without 4G is being phased out of the Thai market.

5G in Thailand

• Thailand auctioned 5G spectrum in the 700 MHz, 2600 MHz and 26 GHz bands on 16 February 2020, raising around 100 billion baht. Five bidders took part: AIS through AWN, True Move H, dtac, CAT Telecom and TOT.
• AIS, through its subsidiary AWN, won 23 of the 49 licences: one in 700 MHz, ten in 2600 MHz and twelve in 26 GHz. True Move H won 17, nine of them in 2600 MHz, and none in 700 MHz.
• CAT Telecom secured both remaining 700 MHz licences, TOT took four 26 GHz licences and dtac two. The 19 licences in 2600 MHz sold for a combined 37.43 billion baht.
• A further spectrum auction on 29 June 2025 covered the 850, 1500, 2100 and 2300 MHz bands, and the NBTC board certified the results on 6 July 2025 by five votes to one with one abstention.
• AIS, through AWN, won three 2100 MHz blocks at 1965 to 1980 MHz paired with 2155 to 2170 MHz for about 14.85 billion baht. True Move H won seven 2300 MHz blocks for about 21.77 billion baht and four 1500 MHz blocks for about 4.65 billion.

Network notes for Thailand

• In October 2025 the NBTC asked its licensees to limit signal radius near the borders so that Thai signals do not leak into neighbouring countries where scammers can use them. Signal close to land borders can therefore be deliberately limited.