TOT may hold off lawsuit after approval for 4G upgrade

TOT called an internal meeting of its executives yesterday to update them on the situation. The state telecom agency’s acting president, Monchai Noosong, reportedly told them that TOT might not sue in an attempt to stop the 900MHz auction.

However, TOT may seek another legal avenue to deal with the case in a way that would allow it to continue to earn revenue from its 900MHz network assets.

He declined to elaborate.

He added that filing a lawsuit would mean it could take time before the case reached finality and TOT might not be able to utilise the concession assets related to the 900MHz spectrum while the court was considering the case.

Takorn Tantasith, secretary-general of the NBTC, said the commission’s telecom committee had given its approval for TOT to use 60MHz of the 64MHz in holds on the 2.3GHz spectrum to provide 4G service. TOT’s rights to this spectrum will end in 2025. Currently it uses the spectrum to provide a long-distance telephone-call service in rural areas.

However, TOT also has to present more details to the NBTC on whether it plans to use all of the 60MHz for the 4G service. If not, TOT should return the unused bandwidth to the NBTC.

The NBTC has reclaimed TOT’s bandwidth on the 900MHz spectrum for auction on November 12. That bandwidth had been used for a concession TOT granted to Advanced Info Service, which expired last month.

TOT has claimed that it is entitled to continue holding this bandwidth to provide cellular service and has threatened to take legal action against the NBTC to defend this claim. The TOT board will decide on Friday if to take a legal action against NBTC on the issue.

Earlier Takorn said TOT should not hold on to 900MHz but instead should focus on maximising its 2.3GHz spectrum.

Last week TOT proposed a business plan for utilising 2.3GHz for wireless broadband services, aiming to launch the service in the third quarter of next year. This is aimed at helping TOT survive in the post-concession era.

The planned 4G service, using Long-Term Evolution (LTE) technology, would tap both urban and rural consumers. The aim is to establish a 2.3GHz network to cover major cities within four years.

In the first phase starting next year it would set up at least 2,000 2.3GHz base stations in all provinces with total capacity to serve 500,000 subscribers. In the second phase in 2017, it would expand the number of base stations to at least 4,000 nationwide to serve a million users.

In the third phase in 2018, it would increase the number of base station numbers to 6,000, which could serve 1.5 million users. The fourth phase, which would begin in 2019, would see 10,000 stations nationwide with total capacity to serve 2 million users.