Cabinet okays CAT Telecom's takeover of Hutch network

BANGKOK: -- The Cabinet yesterday gave its approval to CAT Telecom's takeover of Hutchison Telecom's cellular network in 25 provinces as well as its other businesses in Thailand on the budget of Bt7.5 billion.

In the next step CAT will talk with the Hong Kong telecom operator to finalise the price.

-- The Nation 2010-04-07

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So that means now I can use my CMDA stick all over the nation ???

So that means now I can use my CMDA stick all over the nation ???

Waiting for the day as well... knowing CAT it will take them months and months...

That's great news, BUT, I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for the deal to be finalized. It will likely take several months to work out the details.

A takeover is one thing.

Rolling out CDMA over the whole country is quite another...................

A takeover is one thing.

Rolling out CDMA over the whole country is quite another...................

Well yeah but they've already done that. Thailand has nation-wide CDMA with EV-DO Rev.A (nice alphabet soup there). CAT even operates the Hutch part of the network. But for these two companies to connect their computer systems - that could take a long while...

Well yeah but they've already done that. Thailand has nation-wide CDMA with EV-DO Rev.A (nice alphabet soup there). CAT even operates the Hutch part of the network. But for these two companies to connect their computer systems - that could take a long while...

Connecting the computers can't be that hard, as they are connected already for their voice roaming systems...Including the data service in the roaming shouldn't be that hard.

Biggest job (and most expensive) will be upgrading the Hutch part to the EV-DO standard, as Hutch only done Pattaya and a small part of Bangkok. Hutch covers 25 provinces, so that's a long way to go to get everything up to EV-DO...