CAT assures transparency
Bangkok Post (5 Oct 2007)
Bangkok Post (5 Oct 2007)
CAT Telecom will meet with about 50 suppliers and vendors today to dissuade them from lobbying for telecom projects and stress transparency. Air Marshal Piriya Siriboon, the CAT board spokesman, said that CAT Telecom has been the subject of rumours about lobbying by suppliers. Industry executives have raised questions, for example, about the 7.2-billion-baht CDMA mobile network supplied by Huawei Technologies, which CAT claims failed to meet delivery deadlines. CAT has not decided how much to fine the company but the spokesman insisted 90 million baht per day would still be imposed. He admitted that an executive of Huawei had approached him to clarify the fine. He informed the Chinese executive that he was just a spokesman and that the company should talk to the chairman.
CAT currently has two more major projects that are being eyed by vendors: a billing and customer service system worth two billion baht, and a cabling network estimated to cost 2.6 billion. Air Marshal Piriya said the cabling project was meaningful to CAT because it applied new technology and needed to cover 10,000 kilometres nationwide.
Previously CAT had said the qualified bidder must have a performance record in cabling construction worth at least 500 million baht but it later reduced the sum to 300 million baht, he said. Among the suppliers qualified to bid on the cabling project are Samart, Italian-Thai Development, Alcatel, Ericsson, Siemens, NEC, and Marubeni. There was a rumour that the performance value was reduced further to 200 million baht to favour certain suppliers, an industry source said. Another CAT executive said the agency was expected to show a loss from the first quarter of next year due to a steep decline in international direct dialling (IDD), its core revenue generator. In the first six months of this year, he said, CAT had revenue of 22 billion baht with a net profit of 4.68 billion baht. However, only 10 billion baht came from operations, while the remainder came from concession fees, he said, so real net profit was only 514 million baht. IDD accounted for more than half of the 10 billion baht from operations. If IDD revenue fell by just 10%, CAT would not make any profit, he added.
Previously CAT had said the qualified bidder must have a performance record in cabling construction worth at least 500 million baht but it later reduced the sum to 300 million baht, he said. Among the suppliers qualified to bid on the cabling project are Samart, Italian-Thai Development, Alcatel, Ericsson, Siemens, NEC, and Marubeni. There was a rumour that the performance value was reduced further to 200 million baht to favour certain suppliers, an industry source said. Another CAT executive said the agency was expected to show a loss from the first quarter of next year due to a steep decline in international direct dialling (IDD), its core revenue generator. In the first six months of this year, he said, CAT had revenue of 22 billion baht with a net profit of 4.68 billion baht. However, only 10 billion baht came from operations, while the remainder came from concession fees, he said, so real net profit was only 514 million baht. IDD accounted for more than half of the 10 billion baht from operations. If IDD revenue fell by just 10%, CAT would not make any profit, he added.
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