CAT mulls submarine cable link for chevron

The proposal was made after CAT noted the rising demand for voice and data communications service of Chevron, CAT president Phisal Jorpochaudom said.

The cost of building the new link between Thailand-Vietnam is Bt1 billion, he added.

As this developed, CAT, its joint venture Hutchison-CAT Wireless Multimedia, and CAT's private mobile concessionaires, will sign a Memorandum of Understanding to make a joint request to the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) to set an interim interconnection rate for their bilateral use.

The NTC's interconnection regulations require the network of callers to pay the interconnection fee to the network of call receivers.

CAT owns the concessions of Total Access Communication (DTAC), True Move, and Digital Phone. It wants all parties to sign the MoU after DTAC, True Move, and Advanced Info Service, declined to accept the joint proposal of Hutch and CAT to pay them 21 satang per minute as interconnection fee. They claimed the rate is too low.

Last year AIS, DTAC, and True Move agreed on a bilateral interconnection charge of Bt1 per minute.

Phisal said that TOT and its private concessionaire AIS refused to join the MoU move.

The NTC can set the interim interconnection rate for the telecom operators if they fail to reach an agreement on the rate by themselves.