Thailand's second-largest mobile-phone operator, Total Access Communication (DTAC), plans to invest about Bt30 billion over the next three years, mainly to expand and upgrade its network.

DTAC's announcement

yesterday came at the same time as the third-largest operator, True Move, said separately that it would spend less than Bt12 billion this year, mostly for network expansion.

The country's largest cellular operator, Advanced Info Service (AIS), plans to spend about US$500 million (Bt17.93 billion) this year on network expansion.

DTAC chief executive Sigve Brekke said part of his company's Bt30-billion investment would be spent on an additional 3,000 cellular base stations around the Kingdom. DTAC currently has 7,000 base stations.

The rest is earmarked for the roll-out of third-generation (3G) and High-Speed Downlink Packet Access broadband cellular networks.

The National Telecommuni-cations Commission (NTC) has yet to complete a draft of 3G licensing regulations, but Brekke is optimistic that licences will be issued in the second half of the year.

DTAC will also further expand its existing enhanced data rate for the GSM Evolution high-speed data-transmission network to cover the entire country before the end of May.

Brekke said DTAC's investment would help stimulate the country's economy.

"We strongly believe in Thailand's economy. If not, we would not dare to invest so much. We're also optimistic about market growth," he said, adding that the planned investment would be funded from DTAC's cash flow.

DTAC estimates there will be 10 million new mobile-phone numbers sold this year and a similar number next year, due to intensifying competition between the cellular operators.

AIS commands the largest market share, with more than 18 million subscribers. DTAC has more than 12 million and True Move almost 7 million.

Brekke insisted that despite negative economic and political factors, Singaporean-listed DTAC would go ahead with its plan for an initial public offering of shares in Thailand this year.

Meanwhile, DTAC kicked off a new post-paid promotional package yesterday called "Oh". Subscribers will be charged only for the first five minutes of a call, at Bt1 per minute within the network and Bt2 per minute if it involves different networks. From the fifth to 60th minutes, there is no charge. The monthly fee for the package is Bt99, and it will last for six months.

The three mobile-phone operators DTAC, AIS and True Move also began bilaterally billing one another for interconnection charges yesterday, in accordance with an NTC policy introduced last April.

The regulations require all telecom operators to share voice and data revenues between the networks involved in calls, and the operators have already finalised bilateral interconnection deals.

True Move CEO Supachai Chearavanont said True Corp's investment this year would not focus on True Move's network expansion so much as on its new businesses, including its international-call network.

True is waiting for the NTC to approve its international-calling business licence.

Supachai said True Corp would post consolidated revenues of Bt56.6 billion for last year, of which 43 per cent was contributed by True Move.

Currently, the group has a total of about 22.3 million subscribers to its fixed-line, cellular, broadband-Internet and pay-TV networks.

Sirivish Toomgum

The Nation