Abhisit Asks TOT To Delay Thailand's 3G Roll-out

[george]

3G NETWORK

TOT asked to delay 3G roll-out

BANGKOK: -- Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva wants TOT to wait for the national telecom watchdog's final auction rules on the third-generation, 2.1-gigahertz wireless-broadband spectrum licences before rolling out its new 3G network nationwide.

Yesterday, he said TOT must abide by the Cabinet's November 10 resolution requesting the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Ministry to halt the state agency's Bt20-billion nationwide 3G network roll-out plan, pending the final licence-auction rules from the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC).

Early this month, the economic ministers told TOT to slow down the roll-out while waiting for the NTC to finalise the auction rules. They said if TOT hurried with the plan, its investment could be affected once the rules were announced.

Later, ICT Minister Ranongruk Suwanchawee said TOT could proceed with its plan, because its 3G business was not connected to the NTC's licensing. She insisted the ministry had the final say on the project.

Abhisit yesterday said TOT could still launch its 3G service in the greater Bangkok area on December 3 on its existing upgraded network, given that it was a different part of the planned nationwide network.

The NTC is preparing an auction plan in parallel with moves to confirm its legal authority to grant the licences. It expects to auction the licences in next year's first quarter.

Private telecom operators have prepared at least Bt70 billion for its initial investment in the 3G network roll-out, pending the NTC's licence allocation.

Advanced Info Service has set aside a combined Bt50 billion for its 3G and 2G network over the next three years. Ten per cent of that will be for 2G-network maintenance.

True said it had a variety of funding options available for its 3G roll-out, including using its Bt10-billion cash balance as of the third quarter.

Total Access Communication expects to spend Bt10 billion to Bt20 billion each year during the initial period of its 3G-network roll-out.

TOT, which spent Bt1.7 billion to upgrade its network in the greater Bangkok area to 3G technology, will request its board's approval to spend an additional Bt3 billion.

Senior executive vice president Wichien Naksrinual last week said TOT would take advantage of the as-yet-unavailable NTC 3G licences to accelerate development of its 3G market share. He said the TOT's board and the ICT Ministry had given full support to the company's existing and planned 3G networks.

TOT will lease part of its 3G network on a wholesale basis to five companies - 365 Communication, Loxley, Samart, IEC and M Consultant - to provide 3G service on the mobile virtual-network operator (MVNO) basis. It will allocate an initial batch of 20,000 mobile-phone numbers to each of the five MVNOs for provision of the service and will also provide the service by its own on 100,000 mobile numbers.

An MVNO is a company without its own network and which must therefore lease a network and airtime from another party.

But TOT executive vice president Niwat Kimtrakool this week said the state agency had yet to finalise the wholesale price for its existing 3G network it would lease to the five MVNOs.

Earlier, Wichien said the minimum price would be about Bt300 per user per month.In a separate matter, the Finance Ministry will soon ask the Cabinet to urge TOT and CAT Telecom to hurry and finish amending their private telecom concession contracts to comply with the Public-Private Joint Venture Act.

That Act stipulates concession amendments must first receive Cabinet approval.

A preliminary estimate by the State Enterprise Policy Office shows the amendments will cost TOT Bt87.39 billion and CAT Bt50.645 billion.

-- The Nation 2009-11-18

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[Crushdepth]

He needed to ask them to delay it?!?

[gotlost]

What a joke! The world is going to 4G working on 5G and Thailand can't even get out of 2G.

[niller74]

Guess more money is needed is some pockets... /ponder

[nikster]

He needed to ask them to delay it?!?

It will be the first time they deliver!

I thought MVNO would be good because then TOT won't mess it up, but I was wrong, so wrong... I don't think 300 bht / month will work, seems way too high.

[manjara]

Who on earth are M Consultant?? How can these people set up MVNOs without significant experience.

I can understand Samart and even Loxley, but the others are a bit of a mystery to me. Does anyone have more info on their background?

[Supernova]

What a joke! The world is going to 4G working on 5G and Thailand can't even get out of 2G.

+10

[sillyfools]

TOT has 3G. With their pricing plans what good is it?

Even if you could get 7.2 Mbps (about 1MB/second... this could blow a hole in your wallet very soon when they keep on charging per MB). Utterly ridiculous, but what can you expect from TOT. They can't even build a decent ADSL network. Sometimes I have 500ms latency on their links within Thailand, let alone Europe.

TOT = Get your big fat ass of the internet cable so we can all have some speed please!