CAT frets over 'no income' from service extension
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Operators say continuation may end in losses
While the 17 million subscribers of TrueMove and Digital Phone Co are assured of one more year of cellular service after their cellular concessions end next Sunday, CAT Telecom is worried that it will not see any income from the plan to lease its network to the two operators.
Kajornsak Singhasene, a senior executive vice president of CAT, said TrueMove and DPC had hinted that they might suffer losses from continuing the service, so the state enterprise is concerned that it will not get paid.
CAT had expected to earn in rent the same amount as the revenues from these two operators under their concessions with the agency, he said. CAT has realised revenue of Bt6 billion annually from TrueMove and Bt1 billion from DPC.
The two operators told CAT that the revenue from their interim service might not be high, as they are prohibited by the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission from seeking new revenue from customers during the one-year transition period and even have to encourage customers to migrate to other networks.
CAT will consult with the NBTC on which party will pay CAT if it faces losses from leasing its network to these two companies.
TrueMove reported a first-quarter loss of Bt3.68 billion on revenue of Bt10.1 billion for its 1,800-megahertz service.
Its operating expense was huge at Bt10.9 billion and interest expense was Bt666 million.
In the second quarter, it lost Bt2.1 billion on revenue of Bt89 billion with operating expense of Bt9.87 billion and interest expense of Bt672 million.
Last year it posted a loss of Bt5.87 billion on revenue of Bt42.8 billion.
Settapong Malisuwan, chairman of the NBTC’s telecom committee, said the commission would assign a team to check the details of revenue and operating cost from the service.
Noppadol Dejudom, chief financial officer of True Corp, has said that if TrueMove could earn a profit from serving customers during the transition, True would not keep any of the profit but would turn it over to the NBTC and CAT.
However, if True loses money from this operation, then the NBTC and CAT should help it cover the deficit.
The NBTC has issued a regulation allowing CAT, TrueMove and DPC to collaborate on serving the 17 million remaining subscribers of TrueMove and DPC for one more year.
