Thai Mobile inches closer to 3G

Thai Mobile is moving closer to becoming Thailand's first third-generation (3G) service operator with two European telecom operators and investment funds from China and Russia interested in helping start the broadband cellular service and provide long-term loans.

Djit Laowattana, a TOT board director and spokesperson, disclosed after a meeting yesterday that Britain's Vodafone and France's Alcatel had shown interest in helping construct the network for Thai Mobile with their 3G technologies.

Investment funds from China and Russia would extend long-term loans for Thai Mobile to start up the third generation cellular services.

Thai Mobile is a joint venture between two of Thailand's telecom agencies, TOT and CAT Telecom. It is currently the only operator using 1900 megahertz, a global 3G cellular technology platform. The now defunct Frequency Allocation Committee set aside the spectrum for Thai Mobile before the country's National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) was established three years ago.

He said that Alcatel scheduled a meeting with TOT to propose its 3G technology on Friday.

Djit disclosed that at the first meeting of TOT's 3G committee, it considered using about 17.38 billion baht (US$567.9 million) to migrate the existing 2G service of Thai Mobile to 3G in three phases.

The migration, he said, pinned hopes on Advanced Info Service and DTAC using its 3G network and helping with innovation services.

He said the first phase would involve investing around 1.4 billion baht (US$45.7 million) to upgrade the existing 533 base stations and core network from GSM to WCDMA or 3G technology.

The second phase would use 15.5 billion baht (US$505.6 million) for nationwide investment, and the final phase would need another 400 million baht (US$13 million) for six major provinces in Nakhon Ratchasima, Khon Kaen, Chiang Mai, Phuket, Nakhon Sawan and Surat Thani.

The holding structure of the 3G network would be the same with ACT Mobile as the network owner, while Thai Mobile would rent the network to operate.

But he said that TOT was in the process of buying CAT's stake in Thai Mobile at 2.4 billion baht (US$78.2 million), a deal which has yet to be settled.

Djit said that while the 3G committee was in favor of 3G networks, private operators showed little interest in investing by themselves due to low margins.

He said TOT wanted help from local operators as partners to help manage and develop services.

However, he said that there was no settlement yet on the proposals, but that the situation could become clearer within the next three months before the general elections at the end of the year.

But Sigve Brekke, the chief executive of DTAC, said that his company had never expressed interest in using Thai Mobile's 3G network service.

The TOT board, however, had expressed interest in attracting private operators to use the Thai Mobile network, and had approached DTAC with the concept three months ago. But no direct talks with Thai Mobile had been held to date, Mr Brekke said.

He added that DTAC planned to build its own 3G network and would rather allow Thai Mobile to use its facilities instead.