People living in Samut Sakhon province can now enjoy high-speed Internet, delivered by fibre-optic technology called FTTH (fibre-to-the-home), thanks to the launch of an FTTH service by the Jasmine Group, through its Internet service-provider company 3BB.

With the FTTH technology, users can surf the Internet at speeds of up to 100 megabits per second.

The FTTH service is 3BB's first commercial fibre-optic deployment. It is being provided specifically for a luxury residential development called Porto Villa in Samut Sakhon - a project of property firm D-Land.

Jasmine Group's chief executive Pete Bodharamik, whose company operates the 3BB service, with a maximum speed of 100Mbps, said users would be able to experience multimedia services such as video conferencing, e-learning, video on demand or pay per view.

"3BB has joined hands with D-Land Group to provide the fibre-optic network in Porto Villa. We plan to expand our service to other provinces such as Phitsanulok and Chiang Mai," he said.

The package price starts at Bt1,200 per month, for a download speed of 9Mbps and upload speed of 2Mbps. The maximum package costs Bt6,990 per month with a download speed of 100Mbps and upload speed of 10Mbps.

D-Land Group's executive vice managing director Siriphong Somboon said that 3BB's FTTH service was one of the highlight services at Porto Villa, which was designed under the concept "boutique and luxury living".

The 80,000 square-metre project, located on Rama II Road, consists of 103 houses with 5 different styles and prices ranging from Bt6 million to Bt12 million. All are connected to FTTH technology and have security technologies including video door phones, radio-frequency identification (RFID) and closed-circuit television.

Internet service provider 3BB says it aims to become the leader of the broadband market by 2013, with a market share of more than 40 per cent and 2 million customers. It expects its annual revenue to reach Bt20 billion by the end of 2013.

At Porto Villa, it expects 80 per cent of the residents to subscribe to its FTTH service. It expects that FTTH services will reach a massive number of customers by 2013, when the price will be more affordable because of the large market.

The company has a pilot project that aims to deploy FTTH services in 20 locations around the country before the end of this year. To promote the adoption of the FTTH service, the company will work with its content providers, especially Mono Group.

As of the third quarter of this year, 3BB had 900,000 customers, with an average of 35,000 new customers joining every month. It sees great market opportunities because at present only 4 to 5 per cent of the population can access broadband Internet.