TOT, CAT on mission to connect villages

The ministry recently assigned both CAT Telecom and TOT to achieve this goal this year on a Bt15-billion budget.

An ICT Ministry source said that CAT and TOT have already reached a preliminary agreement on the zones where they will install the broadband networks. 

CAT will roll out the broadband network in the North and the Northeast, totalling 15,000 villages, at a cost of Bt7.5 billion. TOT will oversee the central part of Thailand and the South, covering the |same number of villages at the same cost.

Both TOT and CAT also will have to finish installing the broadband networks in 7,500 villages inaccessible to the networks within six months.

TOT owns 60MHz bandwidth of the 2.3GHz, which can be used until 2025. 

Montchai said the state agency is targeting revenue of Bt65 billion this year, with earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortisation of Bt4.3 billion. 

TOT will trim operating cost by 5 per cent. It will cut staffing by 1,300 from its existing 15,000 employees. 

It will also launch an infrastructure fund for an underground viaduct, which companies can lease to lay their cable networks.

It will also launch an additional two million access points of fibre optic network with an initial budget of Bt35 billion to provide commercial broadband service.

Montchai is hopeful that the broadband project of the ICT Ministry and its own fibre network will enable TOT to expand its broadband service market share to 30 per cent in the next few years from 29 per cent at the present. It is now in third place behind True Corp and Triple T Broadband.

TOT’s board has already selected Advanced Info Service as its partner to provide 3G wireless broadband service on its 2.1GHz spectrum band. AIS will lease 80 per cent of the spectrum capacity to provide the service. However, both have yet to sign on the deal.

Currently TOT and its existing 3G partners have a combined 500,000 3G subscribers.