3g On Hold While CAT Board Forms

[sbk]

3G on hold while CAT board forms

By: KOMSAN TORTERMVASANA

Published: 23/04/2009 at 12:00 AM

Newspaper section: Business

DTAC and True Move have to await approval from the new CAT board before they offer third generation (3G) mobile phone services using HSPA technology.

The Finance Ministry is the major shareholder of CAT Telecom and will hold a shareholders' meeting at the end of this month to appoint a new board. Therefore, it was appropriate to let the new board approve the two operators, said Thaneerat Siripachana, deputy permanent secretary of the Information and Communication Technology Ministry.

Mr Thaneerat, who also chairs CAT's concession monitoring committee, said the state telecom enterprise had no intention to delay 3G commercial launches by private operators but everything should proceed according to the established process.

He said the Council of State, the government's legal advisory body, had already advised CAT to make its own decision on whether to allow True Move to offer 3G service on the 850 Megahertz spectrum.

He said earlier that CAT was uncertain if it could allow True Move to offer 3G service on 850 MHz because True's concession was for 1800 MHz. CAT feared True Move could violate the concession if it offered service on a bandwidth for which it had no concession.

DTAC plans to run its 3G service on bandwidth for which it has a concession, but it still needs final approval from the CAT board.

Mr Thaneerat said the existing CAT board was reluctant to make a decision because it was in a transition period and could be accused of irregularities.

True Move is allying with CAT Telecom to set up 3G trial service, but using DTAC's existing analogue 850 MHz frequency to upgrade to high-speed packet access (HSPA).

The National Telecommunication Commission gave approval to DTAC, True Move and Advanced Info Service for 3G trials using HSPA last August.

DTAC plans to spend five billion baht on the first phase of 3G services covering Bangkok, Phuket and Chon Buri, with commercial services starting within one year. DTAC has NTC permission to deploy 1,200 base stations and True Move 650.

AIS has introduced limited 3G services commercially in Bangkok under its US$150-million first-phase plan.

It planned to spend $60 million to install a total of 600 3G base stations on its existing 900 MHz frequency with HSPA technology in Chiang Mai, Bangkok and Chon Buri in the first quarter of 2009.

AIS plans a pilot commercial launch of 3G in Chiang Mai on May 6.

-- Bangkok Post 2009/04/23

[Crushdepth]

Ermm...how many 3G will-be-here-soon announcements have been made over the last 4 years? Nothing has happened in all that time, it's pathetic. These companies couldn't find their own <deleted> with both hands.

[nikster]

Ermm...how many 3G will-be-here-soon announcements have been made over the last 4 years? Nothing has happened in all that time, it's pathetic. These companies couldn't find their own <deleted> with both hands.

I can't tell if it's real incompetence or if they maybe don't want competition now that they finally have some CDMA subscribers. Both equally likely, IMO.

Meanwhile even Cambodia is using HSPA.

[chalks]

A bit like number portability, which I've been waiting for for 3 years now. Maybe sometime next decade.

[webfact]

Can you remember how long it took until the construction on Swampy started? My guess is between 20-40years.

What are 3 or 4 more years compared to this.... The rest is a piece of cake! My personal opinion: I expected such delay.

Yeah, its sad but in this country people like to announce ..........................but never act.

It seems the cake hasn't been parted into slices everybody involved can be satisfied with.

[AlarmGuy]

Was hoping 3G might one day allow me to run a reliable server from Thailand. Duh - what was I thinking ?