CAT may appoint consultant for conversion plan

The plan says the ministry has to seek ways to end all the private telecom concessions next year in order to promote a fair market.

CAT might have many options, including converting the concessions into shares in the concession holders or into a lease of CAT's networks, he said.

If CAT decides to acquire equity in the cellular firms through the conversion, it will not exceed 49 per cent. But the final percentage depends on the appraised concession value.

Total Access Communication (DTAC), True Move and Digital Phone operate on mobile phone service concessions from CAT.

The consulting company would probably take some six months to finish drawing up the concession conversion plan, he said.

After the conversion, CAT will join with the three mobile-phone operators to develop a third-generation high-speed packet access (HSPA) wireless broadband service on their existing spectrums, including the 2.1GHz spectrum, which the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) plans to licence out via an auction.

True Move and DTAC have already provided a 3G service on their 800MHz spectrum on a non-commercial trial basis with CAT's permission.

Last week the Council of State said on its website that it declined to advise CAT on whether the network upgrade to HSPA by DTAC and True Move is equivalent to a concession amendment. The Council of State said CAT should use its own judgement to decide the matter by itself.

Krisda said he has yet to see the Council of State's answer. If CAT can take action on its own, it would decide to permit DTAC and True Move to launch a commercial HSPA service on their existing spectrums.

CAT also needs to accelerate the concession conversions to avoid the foreseeable loss of concession revenue, he added.

Article 78(2) of the draft law governing the creation of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) says TOT and CAT, and also MCOT, have to transfer their concession revenue in full to the NBTC, which will then pass the amount on to the state coffers.

A House committee has finished vetting the draft law, which will be forwarded for examination by the Council of State soon.

Currently TOT and CAT keep their concession revenue for their operations and pay only corporate income tax and remit a certain amount of profit to the treasury.

CAT and TOT posted over Bt30 billion in combined revenue from their four private mobile concession holders last year alone. CAT and TOT are projected to receive Bt235 billion in concession revenues throughout the remaining concession terms.

For the 3G-2.1GHz licence, companies from Russia, South Korea, the Philippines and Malaysia are courting CAT to be a partner to bid for a licence from the NTC.

CAT is also moving ahead with taking over the assets and CDMA 2000 1-x cellular network in 25 provinces from Hong Kong's Hutchison Telecom, CAT's strategic partner in Hutchison-CAT Wireless Multimedia.

Hutchison Telecom's wholly owned subsidiary, BFKT, leases the CDMA network in 25 provinces to Hutchison-CAT to market the CDMA service. CAT also has its own CDMA network in 51 provinces. The state enterprise wants to merge both networks so it can provide a seamless cellular service nationwide.

"All of these are our business directions - 3G service on an existing spectrum and on the new spectrum, and the nationwide CDMA service," Krisda added.