Campaign 2007 begins

Bangkok Post (7 Nov 2007)

Eighteen political parties registered their "party list" candidates Wednesday to contest the December 23 general election, officially kicking off the campaign season with a much-watched numerology rite.

In a ritual steeped in Thai superstition and local beliefs in numerology, party leaders had to choose one of 18 plastic balls containing the number that would represent their party-list candidates in the polls.

The Democrat Party, one of the top contenders in this election, ended up with Number 4, while its main rival the People's Power Party picked number 12. The Motherland Party got the much coveted Number 1.

"Number four is fine," said Oxford-educated Democrat leader Abhisit Vejjajiva, 43.
The Democrats were the main opposition party during the five-year reign of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his populist Thai Rak Thai (TRT) Party. Thaksin was toppled by a coup on September 19, 2006, leaving Thailand under an interim military-appointed government for the past year.

Thailand, which was deeply divided by Thaksin's populist policies that won him wide support from the poor but eventually turned the Bangkok elite against him, has remained similarly divided in the post-coup period.

"It's time for the country to move on and get out of its crisis," said Abhisit, when leaving the Thai-Japanese Youth Sports Stadium where the party registration took place. "It's time to make our economy a strong economy again."

The Democrats are expected to have a tough time defeating the People's Power Party, labelled the "nominee" party of the self-exiled Thaksin who is currently residing in London.

Thaksin, who faces numerous corruption charges, has vowed to stay out of Thailand until after the December 23 election.

People's Power Party leader Samak Sundaravej, 72, a well-known veteran of Thailand's politics and a loyal ally of Thaksin's, brushed off questions about his party's less-than-auspicious choice of number 12 for it's party list candidates.

"It's no problem," he told reporters. "We will tell voters to remember that we are one dozen," he joked.

"But what's important is that the People's Power Party is the one party that doesn't like the coup makers," said Samak.

The Motherland Party, which chose number 1, is likewise packed with former allies of Thaksin's, although most have now distanced themselves from the controversial former premier.

Under Thailand's new constitution the total number of elected Members of Parliament is 480, of whom some 80 are party-list MPs and 400 are constituency MPs.

Voters will cast two ballots in the December 23 polls, one for local candidates and a second for party-list candidates who are meant to represent the political parties' platforms.

Constituency candidates will register on November 12 to 16.

Altogether, 18 political parties registered party-list candidates on Wednesday.

No one party is expected to win a majority in the December 23 polls, in stark contrast to the overwhelming victories enjoyed by Thaksin and his Thai Rak Thai Party in the 2001 and 2005 polls.

In the aftermath of the 2006 coup, Thailand's Constitution Court found the TRT guilty of committing election fraud in the April 2006, polls, which were later annulled. The court disbanded the party and barred 111 TRT MPs, including Thaksin, from Thai politics for five years.

Thaksin, a billionaire who made his fortune in the country's booming telecommunications sector, has had much of his assets frozen in Thailand as investigations are undertaken into corruption charges against him and his family.

The military junta that overthrew him has been accused of trying to rig the election to make sure pro-Thaksin parties, such as the PPP, don't win the polls and pave the way for a Thaksin comeback. (dpa)

CAT goes on the offensive

The Nation (7 November 2007)

Business revamp aimed at revitalisation

State-owned agency CAT Telecom plans to revitalise its core businesses due to declining revenue and intensifying competition.

Senior executive vice president Marut Buranasetkul yesterday said the agency would upgrade the quality of its conventional 001 international-call service and reduce call rates for its 009 international service, which is based on Voice over Internet Protocol. The aim is to attract more customers.

The agency will also launch prepaid international-call cards called CAT Thai Card Plus in an effort to attract more corporate customers.

CAT's core businesses include international calling, data communications, e-business and cellular phone services.

The state agency will also aggressively promote its data services, such as data network leasing and international Internet gateway services, in response to tougher market competition.

The National Telecommunica-tions Commission awarded additional international Internet gateway licences last year to open up a market that had earlier been dominated by CAT.

Marut said CAT would soon provide an international Internet gateway service covering Indochina. CAT signed a memorandum of understanding with the Hong Kong telecom giant Hutchison Telecom International on Friday. The deal revamps the collaboration between the two organisations in providing a code division multiple access (CDMA) 2000 1-x cellular service in Thailand.

The Thai company that markets the service, Hutchison-CAT Wireless Multimedia, is 26-per-cent owned by CAT, while Hutchison Telecom holds the rest. Under a marketing contract with CAT, the company markets the CDMA cellular service under the Hutch brand.

Hutchison-CAT leases a CDMA network covering 25 provinces from BFKT, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hutchison Telecom. CAT owns a CDMA network covering another 51 provinces, which will be soft-launched next month.

Under the memorandum signed on Friday, BFKT will transfer its CDMA network to CAT, so the state agency will become the sole owner of a CDMA network covering all provinces. It will then lease the nationwide network to Hutchison-CAT to market the cellular service.

Marut said that in the e-business field, CAT Telecom would launch an M Post service. Declining to reveal details at this stage, he said it would allow consumers to reserve various kinds of tickets and buy products via CAT's channels. As well, it will introduce a telephone-based directory information service.

During the first nine months of this year, CAT recorded revenue of Bt34.85 billion, up from Bt22.348 billion received in the same period last year. This was mainly due to higher concession fees from its mobile phone concessionaires.

The state agency's concession revenue in the first nine months was Bt19.179 billion, well up from the Bt7.207 billion recorded in the first nine months of 2006. CAT owns the mobile-phone concessions of Total Access Communication (DTAC), the country's second-largest cellular operator, True Move, the third-largest, and Digital Phone.

Its international call revenue was Bt7.159 billion, falling from Bt7.324 billion a year before, while its data service generated higher revenue of Bt6.055 billion, up from Bt5.424 billion.

Its cellular business contributed Bt1.484 billion during the first nine months of this year, down from Bt1.584 billion.

AIS to promote push-mail service among companies

Bangkok Post (7 November 2007)

Advanced Info Service (AIS) is riding the wave of increased demand for wireless data communications by expanding its wireless corporate push-mail service. The country's largest mobile-phone operator expects the new services to increase the number of its corporate customers to 19,000 next year, up from 12,000 expected by the end of this year.

AIS, in collaboration with Nokia, is offering AIS push mail on the latest Nokia E51 mobile handset, which is priced at 11,500 baht. The Intellisync wireless e-mail version offers enterprise users access to e-mail, phone calls and data simultaneously. The company charges 699 baht per month plus a free server licence.

Push mail, an open wireless corporate e-mail support platform, is a permanently connected service that ''pushes'' or sends e-mails as they arrive to GPRS-supported mobile phones, eliminating the need for users to log in to their inboxes or poll at regular intervals to check whether they have e-mails.

AIS is now marketing push-mail services on BlackBerry PDAs _ GPRS-enabled devices that combine wireless e-mail, mobile-phone and handheld-computer functions; Microsoft direct push; and Nokia Intellisync.

DTAC provides only Microsoft direct push while True Move offers just BlackBerry.

Yip Honmun, vice-president for enterprise markets and solutions of AIS, said the local mobile push-mail market was expected to jump by 50% in terms of the number of users and value in 2008, fuelled by increasing demand for wireless data communications.

Overall, the number of push-mail customers would increase up to 30,000 in a market worth of 300 million baht next year, up from 20,000 users for 200 million baht this year.

''We expect our market share to increase from 50% to 65% next year,'' Mr Honmun said.

He said AIS controlled a 80% share in the corporate market, thanks to a strong GPRS and Edge networks nationwide plus tailor-made services.

Q307 DTAC Announcement

MD&A Q307 DTAC Announcement

From Dtac.co.th

Growth in subscribers slowed down in Q307 compared to 1H07. DTAC added another 401,888 to its subscriber base, bringing the total subscriber base to 14,878,065. DTAC has continuously been expanding the coverage to strengthen market position upcountryand offering customized packages for each region.

Early in Q307, DTAC was able to migrate approximately one-third of its prepaid subscriber base, whose promotions expired at the end of Q207, to new packages with increased tariffs. The migration, couple with general tariff increase for new subscribers during the quarter, resulted in lower usage and more outgoing traffic staying within DTAC's network. The higher on-net traffic had positive impact on interconnect (IC) costs.

DTAC recorded a 4.9% YoY and 2.3%QoQ underlying service revenue growth as a result of growth in subscriber base. However,owing to a decline in incoming traffic, service revenues with IC increased by only 0.9% QoQ. The EBITDA margin dropped to 27.7% due to IEC one-time charge of THB 290 million relating to termination of a service provider agreement. Excluding the one-time charge, the EBITDA margin increased by 1.7 pp to 29.4% due to the reduction of net IC costs.

UCOM's delisting was successfully completed with 99.5%of total UCOM paid-up shares tendered for DTAC new shares. UCOM was delisted from the Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) on September 14, 2007 and, on the same day, DTAC's new shares were listed.

On the regulatory front, the administrative court ruled against TOT's request for an injunction against the ruling of the NTC's Dispute Resolution Committee (DRC), ordering TOT to enter into an IC negotiation with DTAC. Separately, DTAC brought CAT and Hutch to the DRC for refusing to enter into IC negotiation with DTAC.The concession clarification process is still in progress.DTAC is still awaiting prefix for IDD and has not commercially launched the service. In addition, Mobile Number Portability (MNP) is still being studied by operators and the NTC.

More information http://www.dtac.co.th/eng/ir/index_th.html

DTAC Net Profit up 14% in Q3 2007

from thailand4.com

DTAC released figures for the third quarter of 2007 showing a customer growth of 0.4 million for the period. DTAC’s total customer base now stands at 14.9 million. Total Revenues in the third quarter increased by 33% year on year to 16.4 billion baht, due to customer growth and the introduction of the interconnect regime in February 2007. Excluding interconnect, revenues grew by 4% YoY. EBITDA grew by 4%, while net profit came in at 1.4 billion baht, up 14% compared with third quarter of 2006. Chief Executive Officer Sigve Brekke said the third quarter had seen the effect of economic slowdown taking its toll on consumer confidence and spending. “We are cautiously optimistic for the rest of the year and maintain our full year guidance that the whole market will grow by around 10 – 12 million new numbers.” “We also look forward to the upcoming election and the formation of the new government early next year, which will bring back investors’ and consumers’ confidence.”

DTAC is the second largest mobile operator in Thailand. DTAC is listed on Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX) and Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET).

AIS Thailand Standardizing on Nokia Mobility Platform

CNN.com

NEW YORK, -- Nokia today announced that AIS Thailand, the country's biggest operator, has selected Nokia Intellisync Mobile Suite as their standard platform for mobile applications. The solution will enable AIS Thailand to offer mobile email and other business applications to their corporate customers immediately. The operator will also offer Nokia E51, a business smartphone and the latest addition in the Nokia Eseries portfolio, as a part of their device portfolio.

"Mobile working is increasingly important wherever business is conducted. The efficiencies and the cost savings it delivers are important criteria for our business customers," said Mr. Yip Hon Mun, vice president of marketing, Enterprise Solutions, AIS. "We have selected Nokia Intellisync Mobile Suite as our standard mobility platform given the modular structure of the mobileware which means that it can grow and be customized according to the evolving mobility needs of our customers today and tomorrow."

In order to ensure an easy and cost-effective deployment of the different mobile services, to simplify administration and configuration of the mobile phones in use, device management is an integrated part of the offered services.

"AIS Thailand shares Nokia's vision that mobile infrastructure plans should fit into the overall IT strategy for an organization," says Mathia Nalappan, vice president, Enterprise Solutions, Asia Pacific, Nokia. "We recommend that all businesses take a similar, more strategic approach towards mobility. Done right, an organization can gain advantage by improving speed and quality of service, while encouraging collaboration and communication between employees, customers and partners."

Nokia Intellisync Mobile Suite provides access to powerful collaboration tools such as email, contacts, calendar, device management and synchronization of file and data and business applications. Nokia Intellisync Wireless Email as part of Nokia Intellisync Mobile Suite works in any groupware environment - ISP, Microsoft Exchange, Lotus Notes or Groupwise - and can run on any kind of device platform - Symbian, Windows Mobile or Palm. The highly scalable email solution supports a variety of different devices in addition to Nokia Eseries portfolio. Nokia Intellisync Call Connect Client ties employees' mobile phones into a company's telephony system, enabling workers to have all system functions available to them even when out of the office.

Nokia E51 is part of the Nokia Eseries portfolio of business optimized devices that support companies' business mobility strategies by protecting their investments in workforce mobility. Joining the ranks of Nokia E90 Communicator, Nokia E61i and Nokia E65, the Nokia E51 device enables business users to collaborate, communicate, and operate whether they are conducting business from their offices, working remotely or traveling - while also keeping in touch with their personal lives.

About Nokia

Nokia is the world leader in mobility, driving the transformation and growth of the converging Internet and communications industries. Nokia makes a wide range of mobile devices and provides people with experiences in music, navigation, video, television, imaging, games and business mobility through these devices. Nokia also provides equipment, solutions and services for communications networks.

Nokia says door open to Google alliance

Reuters

HELSINKI (Reuters) - Nokia would not rule out taking part in Google Inc's new mobile software alliance, which is seen rivaling Nokia's own plans, a spokesman for the world's top mobile phone maker said on Tuesday.

"It's not ruled out at all. If we would see this as beneficial we would think about taking part in it," said Kari Tuutti, spokesman for Nokia's multimedia unit.

"We should never close any doors."

Web search leader Google said on Monday it would enter the mobile phone market, saying its planned mobile phone software may boost Web use on handsets but without threatening entrenched players.

Analysts, however, said Google could have the means to disrupt the status quo in the wireless software industry, which is dominated by a handful of large phone makers and regional service providers that often tightly control customer choices.

Google's plans pit it against companies such as handset leader Nokia Oyj, Microsoft Corp, Apple Inc and Blackberry maker Research in Motion.

Nokia owns 48 percent of Symbian, whose operating system is behind almost three-quarters of the world's smartphones.

Google said it would work with some of the world's largest telecoms players, including operator T-Mobile, chipmaker Qualcomm Inc and Motorola, to develop an open software platform named "Android" for mobile devices.

Analysts said the platform could give Google a head start in the burgeoning mobile advertising market, which has been hampered by lack of agreement on standards and handset design.

(Reporting by Tarmo Virki)

EX-ICT minister's brother appointed as advisor to ICT minister

The Cabinet Tuesday appointed Santi Pookaiyaudom, a brother of former Information and Communications Minister Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom, as an advisor to the ICT minister.The

Nation (7 Nov 2007)

Business Act back on track

The Nation (7 Nov 2007)

A National Legislative Assembly (NLA) commission yesterday agreed with the definition of "control management" in the Foreign Business Act.

A Commerce Ministry source said the agreement would help the government pass the amended law during its current term.

"From now, the government will accelerate the reading process, but we cannot confirm how long the assembly will take for consideration," the source said.

If the NLA ratifies the draft, the Act will be resubmitted to the Cabinet and passed for royal endorsement and implementation.