CAT's 3G plan gets govt nod
The Cabinet yesterday gave the nod for CAT Telecom to go ahead and invest Bt14.545 billion on the further development of the existing third-generation cellular service and network on 850 megahertz under the CAT-True Group partnership, according to ICT Min
This proposal by the Information and Communications Technology Ministry is part of CAT’s strategy to improve its financial status between now and 2017 – the plan was already approved by the State Enterprise Policy Office.
CAT and True signed these wholesale-resell and network-rental deals in January 2011. Under the deals, BFKT (Thailand) of True rented the 850MHz network for CAT and True to provide 3G wireless broadband service.
In a wholesale deal, CAT sold the 850MHz bandwidth to True’s subsidiary Real Move, while CAT uses some of this bandwidth to provide its own retail service.
The deal, signed during the tenure of the previous government in which the ICT minister was Chuti Krairiksh, attracted scrutiny by scholars and state authorities. One issue in the censure debate that the then-opposition Pheu Thai Party launched against Chuti of the Democrat Party was the legitimacy of the CAT-True deals.
CAT chief executive officer Kitisak Sriprasert said that in the past two years CAT had yet to be able to receive revenue from the project, pending Cabinet’s approval to invest in it. He added that the project made a profit for CAT of Bt1 billion over the past two years, which is expected to rise to Bt4 billion this year and Bt7 billion in 2014.
Of the total Bt14.545 billion CAT will spend on this project, Bt12.525 billion will be invested in the transmission system and Bt670 million on the core network roll-out.
CAT and True are expected to sign on their jointly amended version of these 3G partnership contracts soon. They amended six items in the original partnership contracts to make them comply with the Frequency Allocation Law as ordered by the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission’s telecom committee last year.
The law forbids NBTC licence holders such as CAT and TOT from allowing third parties to take control of their spectrum management.
