Hurdle stays for DTAC's 3G service
Even though the Office of the Attorney-General has indicated that Total Access Communication (DTAC)'s launch of a commercial 3G service last month was within its cellular concession from CAT Telecom, it remains to be seen if CAT will willingly give its fu
Anudith said that despite the OAG's green light, DTAC still needs CAT's full consent to launch the service.
Jirayuth said CAT would ask the OAG today to explain some aspects of its reply.
DTAC declined to comment, pending CAT's forwarding of the official OAG reply to the company.
Hansa Chevapurke, CAT's senior executive vice president for legal and business affairs, said the next step would be to submit the OAG reply to CAT's board.
Although CAT had told DTAC to wait for the OAG's reply, DTAC went ahead and launched the commercial 3G-850 MHz service on 400 base stations in Bangkok on August 16.
On August 18, DTAC submitted a letter to Anudith informing him of the obstacles to its 3G service development.
DTAC has waited since 2008 to receive a permit to offer the commercial service but CAT has only allowed it to provide the service on a non-commercial basis.
DTAC needs to its own 3G service up and running or risk losing its premium customers to Real Move and Advanced Info Service, which have already made full 3G services available.
Real Move, a subsidiary of True Corp, is operating the 3G service in partnership with CAT.
DTAC plans to roll out 800 more 3G sites to cover all of Bangkok and 20 other provinces this year before installing 780 sites next year. The total of 2,000 sites will cover 40 provinces.
DTAC has insisted that it can launch its commercial 3G service under the permit it secured from the National Telecommunications Commission to install and use a 3G-HSPA (high speed packet access) network.
