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Published on August 29, 2007

CAT spokesman Piriya Siriboon said the board would wait for the fine-calculation committee to propose the final amount for the board's consideration on September 11.

In 2005 Huawei quoted Bt7.2 billion to win the tender to roll out 1,600 base stations for the Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) 2000 1-x cellular network for CAT in 51 provinces. The first and second phases each require the installation of 800 base stations.

Huawei delivered the complete second phase to CAT by the deadline of January 26 but it has yet to complete installation of some required software equipment in the network.

According to the contract, the fine is Bt90 million per day for the project's late delivery. CAT has already paid a total of Bt1.8 billion to Huawei for the network rollout.

CAT has pinned hopes on the CDMA cellular service becoming its flagship business and is in talks with Hutchison-CAT Wireless Multimedia to jointly market the CDMA service on their two separate networks.

Hutchison-CAT, a joint venture between CAT and Hong Kong telecom giant Hutchison Telecom, has provided the cellular service on the CDMA network in 25 provinces.

Telecom Reporters

The Nation