CAT puts its hopes on 4G service

Sanpachai Huvanandana, acting chief executive officer, said last week that CAT has already submitted this plan to the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC).

True Corp and Total Access Communication (DTAC) are the only providers of both commercial 3G and 4G services, using the 2.1GHz band.

CAT hopes to win the NBTC’s approval so that it can provide faster data transmission speeds to customers.

An NBTC source said the Telecom Committee is expected to okay CAT’s plan soon.

CAT wholesales most of its 850MHz bandwidth to Real Move of True Corp to provide 3G cellular service. The state enterprise also retails the 3G-850MHz service under its “My” brand.

If CAT gets the green light from the regulator, it will talk to BFKT (Thailand), a subsidiary of True, on its plan to roll out the 4G network. 

Under the CAT-True partnership for 3G-850MHz, CAT has hired BFKT to install the 3G-850MHz network for its current wholesaling of 3G-850MHz bandwidth. 

CAT now runs 13,500 3G-850MHz base stations nationwide.

CAT’s 3G-850MHz network counts about 9 million users, of which 8 million are with Real Move and 700,000 with MY.

Sanpachai hopes that CAT can get the approval before November, when the NBTC intends to auction licences for the 1800MHz spectrum, which can be used for 4G.

CAT would also submit to the NBTC the plan of DTAC, which operates on a concession from CAT, to use part of the company’s 1800MHz to provide 4G service. 

In April, DTAC said it would allocate more bandwidth for 4G, as it aims to boost its 4G subscriber base to 2.5 million by the year-end from 970,000 currently. 

DTAC utilises 5MHz on the 2.1-gigahertz spectrum to offer 4G, with the remainder being used for 3G. It will allocate 10MHz of its 25MHz bandwidth on the 1,800MHz spectrum to offer 4G, giving it total bandwidth of 15MHz for 4G. This move needs the nods of CAT and the NBTC.

The company uses all 25MHz of its bandwidth on 1,800MHz for 2G cellular service, while it uses 850MHz to provide 3G. DTAC’s concession will expire in September 2018.