TOT set to announce 3G partner

[webfact]

3G
TOT set to announce 3G partner
Usanee Mongkolporn
The Nation

BANGKOK: -- TOT is expected to officially announce the name of its business partner for its 3G wireless broadband service at its board meeting on November 13.

But a TOT source said that the board members did not discuss whether TOT would take legal action over the planned 900MHz auction of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission when they met on Friday.

The board only asked the management to present more information of TOT's rights over the 900MHz at the next board meeting.

The board had said it would decide on Friday whether to file a lawsuit. The NBTC is scheduled to auction two 900MHz licences on November 12.

TOT is in talks with Advanced Info Service over the possibility of partnering up for the former's 3G wireless broadband service. Five companies submitted partnership proposals and AIS is the first one TOT has spoken to.

AIS reportedly proposed that TOT would gain Bt4.5 billion in revenue per year if it partnered with it, of which Bt3.9 billion would be paid in cash. The rest would be in the form of AIS providing a maintenance service for TOT's existing 5,320 3G base stations nationwide.

The TOT source said that TOT wanted Bt10 billion annual revenue from the partnership as it expected to suffer a loss of Bt10 billion this year.

AIS was seeking ways to meet the requirement, the source said.

Besides the proposed 3G partnership, AIS might rent cable lines and 13,000 telecommunications towers from TOT. It is estimated the three revenue streams would be worth Bt9 billion per year to TOT.

AIS and TOT are in talks to settle a dispute over the ownership of the 13,000 telecommunications towers under TOT's concession, which expired last month. One of the options is for them to set up a joint venture to manage the towers.

TOT acting president Montcha Noosong said that at Friday's board meeting members acknowledged the state agency's plan to set up an infrastructure fund to finance its plan to move hanging cable lines in underground viaducts.

TOT is expected to appoint the financial adviser for the establishment of the fund next year and launch the fund late next year. It is expected to gain Bt10 billion from the fund.

It will rent the existing cable lines and new cable lines in the fund, which is expected to generate rental revenue of Bt1 billion per year. TOT has cable lines nationwide totalling 25,000 kilometres, of which 20,000km is in Bangkok.

Montchai said that CAT Telecom would also place its cable lines under the TOT fund and own shares in it.

Montchai told TOT executives last week that the state agency would seek new revenue sources from the planned 3G partnership, the infrastructure fund and the plan to develop a wireless broadband service on its 2.3GHz spectrum.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/business/TOT-set-to-announce-3G-partner-30272042.html


-- The Nation 2015-11-02

[Srikcir]

CAT?

It comes with a ready made government digital gateway.

[worgeordie]

Just as the rest of the World in moving on to 4G

regards Worgeordie