Telecom tower dispute likely to be settled soon: AIS chief

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AIS
Telecom tower dispute likely to be settled soon: AIS chief
Usanee Mongkolporn
The Nation

BANGKOK: -- Advanced Info Service is confident that it can settle a dispute over ownership of telecommunications towers with its concession owner TOT before the contract expires in September, according to the company's chief executive officer, Somchai Lertsuttiwong.

He said AIS had been in talks with TOT to solve all disputes and the negotiations were showing progress.

TOT and AIS have sent eight disputes to arbitration, including one over the ownership of the 13,198 telecom towers installed under the build-transfer-operate terms of the concession.

The largest private cellular operator had already transferred all telecom towers to TOT but later reserved the right to hold on to them, after AIS rivals operating under concessions with CAT Telecom were slowing the transfer of their network assets to that state agency.

However, CAT also recently reported progress in its talks with its private concession holders in clearing up the legal battle over ownership of telecom towers.

Somchai admitted that AIS would face difficulty if it could not acquire new bandwidth to boost its service capacity before the end of this year.

Currently AIS serves 44 million subscribers, about 33 million of whom are on its third-generation 2.1-gigahertz network while the rest are 2G customers.

Since late 2013, AIS has spent more than Bt120 billion to develop its 2.1GHz service, including the transmission-tower network and licence bids.

Somchai said he still believed that the auctions of bandwidth on the 1,800- and 900-megahertz would be held in this year as planned by the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission.

The NBTC plans to auction off four licences, two of 12.5MHz each on the 1,800MHz spectrum and two of 10MHz each on the 900MHz spectrum. The NBTC will hold the 1,800MHz auction in November, and take bids for the two 900MHz licences the following month. A telecom industrialist said the new NBTC law would be one factor to decide whether the commission would be able to hold the auctions as planned. If the new law does not empower the NBTC to hold the auction, this would mean the auctions won't take place this year.

The bill will be submitted to the National Legislative Assembly for consideration next month.

Somchai said that if the auctions do not happen this year, AIS still had a Plan B to would partner with TOT to offer wireless broadband service.

TOT was the first telecom operator to offer 3G service, on 15MHz bandwidth of the 2.1GHz spectrum. It debuted the service in December 2009 through reseller partners. TOT and its partners now have about 500,000 3G customers in total.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/business/Telecom-tower-dispute-likely-to-be-settled-soon-AI-30258099.html


-- The Nation 2015-04-17

[JacChang]

There goes my JASIF and TRUEIF.