TOT told to cut 3G investment budget

The minister said the original amount was too high.

TOT will contribute Bt2 billion, while the rest is expected to come from loans secured on a government-to-government basis.

TOT, which is expected to finish its 3G business and network roll-out plan within the next four months, wants to lease the 3G network to telecom operators to provide the service while staying out of the retail-service market itself.

A preliminary plan shows TOT setting up 500 3G base stations this year and before the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) can auction the 3G-spectrum licences.

If TOT fails to do so, private telecom operators will obtain the licences from the NTC themselves and build up their own networks instead of leasing from TOT.

The watchdog intends to auction four of the 3G-spectrum licenses in the third quarter but has yet to finalise other key details, such as their validity period.

The now-defunct spectrum-allocation committee awarded the 1900-megahertz spectrum jointly to TOT and CAT Telecom in 2000. CAT is in the process of transferring its part of the spectrum ownership to TOT. The spectrum is part of the 2.1-gigahertz spectrum, an international standard platform for developing 3G service. Meanwhile, TOT's labour union yesterday asked Ranongruk to probe the company's alleged plan to spend Bt100 million on publicity for its upcoming 3G business. The minister promised to look into the matter.

She will also look into last Thursday's ruling by the House of Representative's communications and telecom committee that payment made by TOT to Samart i-Mobile (SIM) for overdue fees for state-run Thai Mobile was inappropriate.

This followed a subcommittee's conclusion that payment for overdue customer-service and billing-management fees had been made without the TOT board's approval, because the board had only told management to act as it deemed appropriate in the case.

On December 21, 2007, SIM filed a lawsuit against both TOT and CAT Telecom, joint owners of Thai Mobile, in the Civil Court to enforce their payment of Thai Mobile's Bt1.115 billion worth of overdue fees plus Bt1.533 billion in damages, including interest on the outstanding amount.

Later, TOT sought a compromise with SIM and paid Bt1.476 billion of the overdue fees to SIM last October. SIM also agreed to withdraw its suit against TOT and CAT.