Published on May 05, 2005

CAT Telecom Co will expand services and use its own name brand to promote its broadband cellular service in 51 provinces.

The decision was made after CAT failed to take management control over its mobile-phone joint venture Hutchison-CAT, said Witit Sujjapong, the state agency’s president. Hutch offers the so-called CDMA 2000 1-x broadband cellular service under the Hutch brand in 25 provinces in central Thailand.

CAT is installing its own CDMA 2000 1-x network in the remaining 51 provinces and will be connected to Hutch to enable both providers to jointly offer a nationwide service.

Witit said that CAT is expected to start offering the CDMA service under the CAT Telecom brand in some of the 51 provinces by October and will target 300,000 customers in the first year of operations.

CAT is also recruiting telecom veterans to fill senior executive positions to oversee marketing.

There is a rumour that CAT is wooing Kittsanan Ngamphathipong, former executive vice president for marketing at Advanced Info Service. Witit declined to comment, while Kittsanan denied the rumour.

Usanee Mongkolporn

The Nation

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