CAT targets mass individual market with C Internet brand

CAT will capitalise on its strong international Internet gateways and undersea cable networks to tap home and office subscribers, said Dhanant Subhadrabandhu, executive vice president for the agency’s product and development group.

Among the current dominant players are True Corp, Triple T Broadband of Jasmine International, Advanced Info Service (AIS), and TOT, with about 6 million broadband subscribers in total.

CAT will spend around Bt80 million on a marketing campaign this year and expects Bt2 billion in revenue from the fixed-line broadband service this year.

"We’re eyeing growth in revenue of about 30 per cent, with a total of 120,000 individual subscribers before doubling that to more than 200,000," Dhanant said.

He added that last year CAT posted revenue from broadband Internet of Bt1.5 billion from 1,300 corporate accounts and nearly 100,000 households.

He said CAT had invested around Bt10 billion a year on expansion of submarine cable and fibre-optic networks nationwide, while it has international Internet gateways in Hong Kong, Singapore and the United States. All of these networks should help CAT provide more efficient connectivity for users.

He said CAT had also joined with major property firms such as Land and Houses and Sansiri to provide Internet services and capture the urban home market.

CAT is offering a promotional campaign for its C Internet service, starting with a Bt690 monthly fee for a download of 15 megabits per second and upload speed of 1Mbps.

CAT is the latest provider to enter the mass broadband Internet market. True has more than 2.2 million household subscribers, while Triple T has about 1.8 million, TOT 1.3 million, and AIS 60,000. AIS just launched its broadband service this April.