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Published on August 10, 2007

Takorn Tantasit, deputy secretary-general of the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), said the NTC board had asked AIS to resubmit the application, which must have more details of the financial and business operations.

AIS's wholly owned subsidiary, Super Broadband, applied for a licence to offer a wide range of services, from Voice Over Internet Protocol to a data leased-line service.

Others services included wireless broadband Internet, virtual private networks, public telephones, intelligent networks, videoconference facilities and a data service via the fibre-to-home network.

Super Broadband, which is capitalised at Bt1 million, will spend Bt3.827 billion throughout the licence period of 25 years. It will raise capital of Bt450 million in the first year, when it will also borrow Bt690 million to run the business.

The company expects cash flow of Bt2.687 billion in the first year. It has also applied for 100,000 phone numbers for its business.

The licence Super Broadband applied for is in the Type-3 category, which is for an applicant with its own large network.

Advanced Datanetwork Communication (ADC), the existing AIS broadband Internet-provider joint venture with TOT, has already won an NTC licence to do the businesses Super Broadband plans to do.

However, ADC has not utilised the licence because TOT opposed the plan out of concern that ADC would later become a competitor in the data-service field. TOT also owns the AIS mobile concession, besides holding 49 per cent in ADC.

Usanee Mongkolporn

The Nation