CAT, TOT Given Deadline To Rectify Unlawful Thai Telecom Concession Amendments

[webfact]

Cat, TOT given deadline to rectify amendments

Information and Communications Technology Minister Chuti Krai-riksh has set December 15 as deadline for TOT and CAT Telecom to conclude ways to rectify some allegedly unlawful telecom concession amendments.

Chuti said he recently ordered the presidents of TOT and CAT to urge the state-private joint committees under Section 22 of the 1992 Public-Private Joint Venture Act to conclude the matter within the deadline. Representa-tives of the two state agencies have chaired the Section 22 committees.

Chuti added that he would consider both state agencies as negligent in their duties and as having failed to protect the state interest if they fail to meet the deadline. He said he had urged the state agencies three times but they have failed to work out solutions. The committee submitted its conclusions to Chuti in July but he could not submit them for the Cabinet’s consideration because they did not propose solutions to the cases, only the opinions of the committee members on the cases.

Chuti added that they would have to urgently find solutions to the problems as some concessions would eventually expire. The Section 22 panels have reviewed the concession amendments of many private telecom operators, from Advanced Info Service, Total Access Communication to True Move and Digital Phone. This follows the Council of State’s ruling in 2007 that those amendments failed to comply with the Act, given the lack of approval from coordinating committees and the Cabinet.

The concessions granted to TrueMove, AIS and DTAC will end in 2013, 2015 and 2018 respectively.

The telecom operators are expected to take the cases to the arbitration panel and then to court if they are ordered to go back to the original terms in their concessions. If they do this, the cases could take years to settle, they say.

-- The Nation 2010-11-22

[Northman061]

This ongoing farce of Elite run businesses highlights a major ongoing and long term problem with Thai business.

As long as Non Thai businesses are banned from bidding, running and managing "National" and "State" services and projects, this scenario will continue.

Why was Nokia, Orange, Seimens, Virgin not bidding for the 3/4 G contract? Well its because they cant!

The Elite run "National and State" run services would be shown up.

Virgin would not give or accept bribes!

Seimens would build and complete on time and to buget.

Orange/Nokia would provide a modern efficient service at a lower price.

So, the money stays in the hands of the Elites and the thais end up with inferior service and delivered slow and overpriced.

No wonder Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam are years ahead of Ancient Fuedal Thailand in the 21st century!!

[whybother]

This ongoing farce of Elite run businesses highlights a major ongoing and long term problem with Thai business.

As long as Non Thai businesses are banned from bidding, running and managing "National" and "State" services and projects, this scenario will continue.

Why was Nokia, Orange, Seimens, Virgin not bidding for the 3/4 G contract? Well its because they cant!

The Elite run "National and State" run services would be shown up.

Virgin would not give or accept bribes!

Seimens would build and complete on time and to buget.

Orange/Nokia would provide a modern efficient service at a lower price.

So, the money stays in the hands of the Elites and the thais end up with inferior service and delivered slow and overpriced.

No wonder Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam are years ahead of Ancient Fuedal Thailand in the 21st century!!

I don't know of any countries where Nokia provide Telecom services.

[jayjay0]

This ongoing farce of Elite run businesses highlights a major ongoing and long term problem with Thai business.

As long as Non Thai businesses are banned from bidding, running and managing "National" and "State" services and projects, this scenario will continue.

Why was Nokia, Orange, Seimens, Virgin not bidding for the 3/4 G contract? Well its because they cant!

The Elite run "National and State" run services would be shown up.

Virgin would not give or accept bribes!

Seimens would build and complete on time and to buget.

Orange/Nokia would provide a modern efficient service at a lower price.

So, the money stays in the hands of the Elites and the thais end up with inferior service and delivered slow and overpriced.

No wonder Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam are years ahead of Ancient Fuedal Thailand in the 21st century!!

Agreed open it up to all bidder's. Drop the qualification that says you must bribe to get a license. Change it to give a quality service.

Indonesia My experience with them was Thailand is a all star.

[mythBuster]

Now the relation with Cambodia has much improved. Maybe the minister in charge of Telecommunication can travel to PP and ask how the Cambodians got 3G done ten years ago. Just like the Khmer learned the Thai how to build temples and cities, and irrigate their farm land they can teach the Thai government again how you develop an modern communication infrastructure from scratch.

It is quite absurd and embarrassing what is happening in Thailand and if you do not like the outcome you buy a judge (do not film it) and you get what you want. In the meantime Thailand and North Korea must be the only two countries on earth who have not yet embarked on a 3G experience.

[NCFC]

This ongoing farce of Elite run businesses highlights a major ongoing and long term problem with Thai business.

As long as Non Thai businesses are banned from bidding, running and managing "National" and "State" services and projects, this scenario will continue.

Why was Nokia, Orange, Seimens, Virgin not bidding for the 3/4 G contract? Well its because they cant!

The Elite run "National and State" run services would be shown up.

Virgin would not give or accept bribes!

Seimens would build and complete on time and to buget.

Orange/Nokia would provide a modern efficient service at a lower price.

So, the money stays in the hands of the Elites and the thais end up with inferior service and delivered slow and overpriced.

No wonder Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam are years ahead of Ancient Fuedal Thailand in the 21st century!!

I don't know of any countries where Nokia provide Telecom services.

Siemens, neither.

Though Nokia Siemens jointly sell next generation telecom networks and will be bidding for that business whoever wins the 3G licences.

And another part of Siemens successfully bid for the construction and running of the MRT and Airport Link, so I think the poster was a little unfair to say that non-Thai companies cannot bid for state contracts.

Come to think of it, DTAC is owned by Telenor, so that's another foreign-owned business.

[selftaopath]

This ongoing farce of Elite run businesses highlights a major ongoing and long term problem with Thai business.

As long as Non Thai businesses are banned from bidding, running and managing "National" and "State" services and projects, this scenario will continue.

Why was Nokia, Orange, Seimens, Virgin not bidding for the 3/4 G contract? Well its because they cant!

The Elite run "National and State" run services would be shown up.

Virgin would not give or accept bribes!

Seimens would build and complete on time and to buget.

Orange/Nokia would provide a modern efficient service at a lower price.

So, the money stays in the hands of the Elites and the thais end up with inferior service and delivered slow and overpriced.

No wonder Singapore, Indonesia and Vietnam are years ahead of Ancient Fuedal Thailand in the 21st century!!

Thank you. I agree. And I would suggest these same/but different, "elites" are the reason a foreigner can not own land. They want to keep EVERYTHING for the rich and powerful Thai. Funny, but if I owned land here, could I transport it back to USA????? But so many Thai people seem to believe I could or would. LOL In other civilized/democracies a person can purchase land if s/he has the money. But not in Amusing Thailand.

[Northman061]

In my previous post, i was just pulling names from the air (those i know from the UK) to highlight the way Thai business is done.

It is right that international companies can bid and CO RUN building and Infrastructure projects, but OWNERSHIP always stays in Thai hands through majority ownership (written into LAW)

DTAC has an ownership of 39.89% by TELENOR ASIA PTE LTD - Based in Singapore and is NOT the Telnor Group which we all know, but was set up to control the Thai mobile market and is owned by (amongst others Senior Thai ex politicians and generals) and 15.03% by THAI TELCO HOLDINGS LIMITED which is also run by some Major thai elite families.

Thailand has some of the most severe and draconian business "ownership" laws and regulations in Asia. For those business Thai Elites with money and infuence, its fine. That is why (in part) even Vietnam is attracting more International new business than Thailand.

Just going off OP for a second, the item below is a direct lift from retire-asia.com, the site is an independent site assisting those with cash, where to retire and what to do with your cash. Should you invest in stocks, business etc. This is what (in part) it says about Thailand and its attitude to Non thai Business.

Foreigners in Thailand are naive if they think that their knowledge, business skills, willingness to employ people or generate income and taxes for the overall benefit of Thailand and Thai people, is wanted, much less appreciated, by the Thais.

One-way investment including upmarket tourism is far more preferable and this is encouraged. There are former government-sponsored schemes to attract money from the rich and famous. Low budget tourists or retirees with relatively low resources are tolerated rather than welcomed, in spite of the overall financial benefits they bring.

nuff said i think.

[MJo]

Google some more.

Telenor has invested and owns quite a bit all around asia. The same telenor group we know. In DTAC's case they might own less than 50% due Thai laws but DTAC has had Norwegian CEO as long as i can remember. So they seem to be very much in control.

AIS is owned by Singtel nowadays, wasn't that the reason Thaksin had to go in the end when he sold to Singapore and didn't pay taxes due some technicality?

Also if i'm not mistaken the operator we know as Hutch used to be Orange when they started?

[livinthailandos]

First TOT & CAT are state owned businesses and based on that only I can only assume they want to make sure they don't lose money, or provide a competitive market, all they have to do is keep playing games, maybe have a few years playing in the court systems along with a long wait out period and make sure new consessions and licenses never happen by doing this a few years eventually they get back all their spectrum and networks of true, dtac and ais along with their customers and billing. This provides a win scenario for both companies which in turn means

3 - 5 years from now if we are still living in thailand mostly likely we will all still be on 2.5G networks along with complaining about having TOT or CAT for our mobile phone operators and there poor support service and lack of good signal plus high prices. I would like to be hopeful but when

1. Corruption comes into play

2. Lots of money involved

3. Thai Mentality

we all lose out.

[TAWP]

Another example why the government should never-ever run, or jointly own, any corporations.

Neither socialism nor corporatism is for the benefit of the people.

[selftaopath]

First TOT & CAT are state owned businesses and based on that only I can only assume they want to make sure they don't lose money, or provide a competitive market, all they have to do is keep playing games, maybe have a few years playing in the court systems along with a long wait out period and make sure new consessions and licenses never happen by doing this a few years eventually they get back all their spectrum and networks of true, dtac and ais along with their customers and billing. This provides a win scenario for both companies which in turn means

3 - 5 years from now if we are still living in thailand mostly likely we will all still be on 2.5G networks along with complaining about having TOT or CAT for our mobile phone operators and there poor support service and lack of good signal plus high prices. I would like to be hopeful but when

1. Corruption comes into play

2. Lots of money involved

3. Thai Mentality

we all lose out.

How true. And hope the world can see the Thai government correctly.

To add to this painful appalling control by greedy bastards those who want something more honest/functional/modern will be told: "If you don't like it go back to your home country." Or we'll hear things like " I really don't understand fellow foreigners who come here and complain; don't they do any research to see how things are before coming here"?

Amusing Thailand ought to be the advertising slogan. However the norm here is far from amusing.