3G Auction To Go Ahead In Thailand Despite Possible Lawsuits

[webfact]

3G auction to go ahead despite possible lawsuits

By SIRIVISH TOOMGUM,

USANEE MONGKOLPORN

THE NATION

In photo: ZTE (Thailand) managing director Zhang Xioake at the press conference. While TOT plans to forge ahead with the e-auction for its Bt17.44-billion project to establish a nationwide third-generation telecom network on

Friday, it remains to be seen whether it can achieve this goal in the face of a possible lawsuit by the disqualified bidders.

A telecom industry source, while declining to elaborate, said 'an attempt' was also being made to delay the auction.

According to a primary qualification examination by TOT, the SL consortium of Loxley, Samart, Nokia Siemens Networks and Huawei Technologies and the AU consortium of Advanced Information Technology, Alcatel-Lucent (Thailand) and United Communication Industry are the two qualified bidders. The two disqualified bidders are the Ericsson-AS Associate Engineering (1964) and Forth Corp-ZTE consortia.

TOT informed Ericsson's consortium on January 14 and Forth-ZTE on January 19 about their preliminary disqualifications and gave them three days after the notifications to appeal against the ruling. If TOT did not consider their appeals, that would amount to final disqualification.

Both have petitioned the Prime Minister's Office and the Information and Communications Technology Ministry on the matter.

Another telecom industry source said the Ericsson consortium had considered bringing the case to the court.

Given that this is TOT's biggest project in many years, no potential bidder wants to miss the chance to take part. Samart Corp is eager to clinch the whole project, which would help boost its ICT business revenue by Bt6 billion this year.

ZTE (Thailand) managing director Zhang Xioake said yesterday that ZTE would bring the case to the court once it was officially informed by TOT that it is disqualified. But he declined to provide details as it is consulting a lawyer on the case.

According to ZTE, it was disqualified because of its proposal for core capacity of the network higher than required by the bid's Terms of Reference (TOR). Last Friday, the company submitted an appeal to TOT to confirm its full compliance with the TOR.

"It's not a mistake to provide more than the TOR," Zhang said.

Also last Friday, ZTE petitioned the PM's Office, the ICT Ministry and the TOT board that the result was unfair to ZTE and the qualifications of some bidders were doubtful, which should not be ignored by TOT. It added that more consortia competing in the bid would benefit TOT.

Earlier, there was a rumour that Samart's qualifications contradicted the TOR, which bans companies doing business in competition with TOT from joining the bid. Samart president Watchai Vilailuck argued that the company had never competed with TOT.

China's ZTE has set a revenue target for its Thai subsidiary of US$160 million (Bt4.95 billion) this year, compared with ZTE Thailand's revenue of $55 million last year.

When asked if it could meet the revenue target if it fails to take part in the TOT 3G project, Zhang said the company would try its best to meet the goal. He added that there was huge business opportunity in the mobile and broadband network markets here.

The TOT panel disqualified the Ericsson-led consortium for the absence of catalogues for antenna-related products in its proposal.

Ericsson Thailand sent three letters last week to TOT to clarify the case, one of which asked why that apparent oversight had not been raised during a meeting with TOT representatives on January 14 to discuss the Ericsson proposal. The consortium should have been notified of this matter during the meeting so that it could rectify the situation, it argued.

-- The Nation 2011-01-26

[swillowbee]

... brilliant! ... that ought to poison the well sufficiently to deter any foreign bidders!

[billd766]

Both disqualified consortiums have built cellular networks in many countries across the world and to a better standard than Thailand.

It seems that ZTE was disqualified because it had the audacity to offer a higher capacity network (thus possibly denying more kickbacks when comes the time for expansion).

IMPO both TOT and CAT should be completely dismantled and all of the higher management dismissed without pay and banned from ever entering the telecom network in Thailand.

They have successfully ended up in costing Thailand a vast sum of money, the mobile customers the chance of a better service for the last few years and made Thailand the laughing stock in the telecommunications world.

Shame on them.

[jillwilliams999]

The Chinese are such poor looser.

[RedNIvar]

Never ending story. Typical of how some people set themselves up to make big bucks while denying the country advancement in technology. Thailand's telecommunication industry is behind most countries in South East Asia (Including Cambodia).

[Derifo]

I thought only one bidder would win. I don't understand why they are screaming. One thing that has been delaying the take off of 3G here is because nobody wants to lose out. Both CAT and TOT went to court to stall the auction of 3G licenses last year. Managers of ZTE are making a mistake if they think they can win a case against TOT here.

[jayjay0]

Some one should be suing the Government for letting it go on this long.

We should be looking at 4G now.

If the government thought they could get away with it they would yhave us using to tin cans with a string between them.:jap:

I hope they don't read this it might give them a idea.

[moskito]

project to establish a nationwide third-generation telecom network

LOL, what happend with the first and second generation? Right, they never worked.

OR

....I am just working on my third Million Euro, first two doesnt work out.

TOT btw means DEAD in German language and so it is, the competitors just should wait.

[theanimaster]

Some one should be suing the Government for letting it go on this long.

We should be looking at 4G now.

If the government thought they could get away with it they would yhave us using to tin cans with a string between them.:jap:

I hope they don't read this it might give them a idea.

Well, the Yellow shirts can make it their next agenda. They seem to be able to push this witless cowardly government to do the things they SHOULD be doing (like not allowing Cambodia to trample all over the Thais...)

[whybother]

Well, the Yellow shirts can make it their next agenda. They seem to be able to push this witless cowardly government to do the things they SHOULD be doing (like not allowing Cambodia to trample all over the Thais...)

The yellow shirts don't seem to be very successful in getting the government to do what they want.

IMO, the government are doing the right thing in not listening to the yellow shirts.

Maybe the yellow shirts should be telling the government to scrap 3G and stay with 2.5G. The government might not listen and will actually get things sorted out with 3G.

[jayjay0]

Some one should be suing the Government for letting it go on this long.

We should be looking at 4G now.

If the government thought they could get away with it they would yhave us using to tin cans with a string between them.:jap:

I hope they don't read this it might give them a idea.

Well, the Yellow shirts can make it their next agenda. They seem to be able to push this witless cowardly government to do the things they SHOULD be doing (like not allowing Cambodia to trample all over the Thais...)

Have people around you been smoking funny smelling tobacco.

So far the yellow shirts have managed to fall flat on there face. With one of them in a foreign jail looking at spending more time there through his knowingly breaking Cambodian laws trying to get the Thai government to do what he wants them to do.

Abhist is not influenced one bit by them.

Being a Thai he is probably embarrassed by there stupidity.