Watchdog orders probe into CAT-True deal
The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission's telecom committee yesterday instructed officials to investigate whether BFKT (Thailand), which leases network equipment to CAT Telecom under the CAT-True Corp 3G service partnership deals, has
Officials have to report their findings to the panel within 30 days.
BFKT is a subsidiary of Real Future, which is wholly owned by True. If found to be in violation of Article 7 of the 2001 Telecom Business Act, its executives would be liable to imprisonment or a fine.
The committee’s decision to order the investigation follows its approval yesterday of the conclusion reached by its subcommittee scrutinising the legality of the CAT-True 3G partnership deals. It recommended that the watchdog should order CAT to revise the deals to make them fully compliant with the 2010 Frequency Allocation Law.
The subcommittee concluded that in practice, CAT appeared not to have complete management control of its 800MHz spectrum being used under the partnership to provide wholesale-resale 3G service. Article 46 (2) of the Frequency Allocation Law prohibits NBTC licence holders from allowing third parties to take control of their spectrum management.
The subcommittee also recommended to the NBTC telecom panel that CAT should revise some parts of the contracts with True to give it full management control of its spectrum.
It also noted that if BFKT did not support CAT in revising the deals, the company might be deemed as operating part of the state agency’s business under the contracts, which could put it as risk of breaching the Telecom Business Act. It is because of this that the telecom panel has instructed officials to investigate whether BFKT is operating part of CAT’s business without an NBTC licence.
has to make it clear in the High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) network-equipment leasing contract between it and BFKT that it can use its 800MHz spectrum with its own network equipment and that of other parties, too, besides with BFKT’s equipment.
Moreover, CAT has to enable itself to control the spectrum via the network operation centre of the 3G service. The centre, which is the key spectrum-controlling system, is located on BFKT premises and is under BFKT’s control.
CAT also has to revise part of the HSPA network-leasing contract, and part of the 3G capacity wholesale-resale contract it signed with True’s Real Move, to enable it to access the call-detail record system and have full control of the spectrum.
The HSPA network-leasing contract mentions a CAT-BKFT joint operation supervision committee, but does not clarify the overall scope of its authority, or what is CAT’s authority in relation to it. This has to be revised to show CAT has full control of its spectrum.
CAT also has to revise the other part of the HSPA network contract to show that it has full control of its spectrum in regard to spectrum planning and network roll-out and operation.
The state agency must report to the NBTC telecom committee within 30 days on the progress it has made on contract revision.
