• 
• 

Published on October 1, 2007

A TOT source said that the board meeting on Friday of last week asked the management to work out details of the e-auction process and submit it to the board this coming Friday.

TOT's board has experienced heavy criticism from the public and its labour union about its transparency following the decision to procure the broadband equipment - worth Bt976 million - without bids.

The board continues to deny that there was any irregularity in the project, explaining that TOT had to speed up broadband development to boost its revenue.

TOT has already talked with Chinese telecom-equipment supplier ZTE about the deal, but ZTE has reportedly refused to mark down its previous price, the source at the state agency added.

According to TOT documents, part of the project of rolling out a broadband Internet network nationwide is also intended to support a request by the Royal Thai Army's intelligence unit for equipment to support its national security mission in the South.

Of TOT's total broadband roll-out project cost, around Bt500 million is for installing Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line ports, about Bt100 million for an Internet Protocol network and almost Bt400 million for a fibre-optic backbone network.

TOT targets broadband Internet revenue at Bt2.4 billion this year, up from Bt1.3 billion last year.

It expects broadband Internet subscribers to grow to 450,000 this year from the present 350,000.