TOT's board yesterday gave the nod to the state agency's plan to pay Bt2.4 billion to acquire all of CAT Telecom's shares in their cellular joint venture set up to offer third-generation (3G) services.

TOT will pay for CAT's 42-per-cent stake in Thai Mobile on a five-year instalment basis.

TOT wants to be the sole owner of Thai Mobile as part of a plan to move the cellular operator to develop its 3G service.

Thai Mobile is the only cellular operator that owns a chunk of the 1900MHz cellular spectrum, an international standard platform for offering 3G broadband wireless services.

After launching the service several years ago, Thai Mobile has about 80,000 customers but debt totalling Bt6 billion.

TOT has a plan to roll out its 3G network and lease it to telecom operators so they can provide retail 3G services. The National Telecom-munications Commission has yet to award a 3G-frequency licence to any operator.

Meanwhile, TOT's board ordered the company to consider whether it could save costs by merging the billing systems of Thai Mobile and its own fixed-line business.

Its fixed-line business has leased Telemetics' billing system for

five years now for Bt19 million a month, while Thai Mobile has used Samart i-Mobile for billing these past five years for Bt24 million a month.

Thai Mobile has extended the deal by another two years from the original expiry date of this October.

The board also ordered TOT to speed up a project to install an additional 565,000 fixed telephone numbers nationwide.

Network suppliers failed to complete the project on schedule by last August, citing flood problems and difficulties with the cable network.

Siemens is responsible for Bangkok and the Northeast, while Ericsson is handling the Central region, the South and the North.

Telecom Reporters

The Nation