Huawei/Loxley joins CAT bid

Bangkok Post (26 November 2007)

Five groups to bid on B2.6bn ASON projectFive groups of companies have shown interest in bidding for CAT Telecom's 2.6-billion-baht automatically switched optical network (ASON), a board director has disclosed.

He said the deadline allowing interested companies to buy bidding documents passed last Thursday, and five consortiums had bought the documents. They were required to submit their proposals to CAT by Dec 20.

Of the five groups of companies that bought documents, he said, four were earlier qualified to enter the bid. They included Ericsson, Jasmine, Marubeni and NEC.

The newcomer in this latest bidding round was Huawei/Loxley, he said.

Earlier Huawei/Loxley was disqualified because it could not meet the performance value requirement, which stated that qualified bidder must have completed a project worth about 390 million baht, or 15% of the project value.

However, the board later eased some bidding terms, lowering the performance value to 10% or 200 million baht, to enable more companies to compete in the bid.

But as the deadline to buy bidding documents expired last Thursday, only Huawei/Loxley bought the documents. No other new companies showed an interest in buying the documents.
The director noted that one director AM Piriya Siriboon, who disagreed with the decision to ease the bidding terms, did not attend the board meeting at which the requirements were relaxed. AM Piriya had earlier said that companies must have successfully completed a project worth at least 390 million baht, or 15% of the project value, to qualify for the bid.

The board's decision was made in part because some bidders complained that the requirements disqualified them.

But other bidders saw the 15% condition as fair and suitable since the ASON project is significant to the state agency. Changes to the bidding terms would only confuse bidders and unnecessarily delay the project, they said.

Shin Satellite wins contract to supply broadband to Indonesia

The Nation (24 November 2007)

Shin Satellite, the operator of the IPSTAR satellite broadband system, yesterday said the company had signed an agreement with Indonesia's FirstAsia Group to provide IPSTAR gateway operations and services.

Under the agreement, FirstAsia Group will place an initial order for 5,000 user terminals with a bandwidth commitment of 200 megabits per second. The construction of the Indonesian IPSTAR gateway will commence next month and will be completed by the first quarter of next year. With the completion of the Indonesian gateway, IPSTAR will have accomplished its milestone of serving all Southeast Asian markets.

FirstAsia Group will be responsible for the IPSTAR gateway infrastructure and operation in Indonesia. FirstAsia will also be a service provider for broadband Internet access and other valued-added services such as Voice over Internet Protocol, video conferencing and IPTV. At present, FirstAsia provides wireless broadband infrastructure and IPSTAR will help FirstAsia to expand its broadband network to every part of Indonesia.

Iwan Iman, president director of FirstAsia, said in a statement: "IPSTAR offers the best answer for the growing broadband market in Indonesia. Our country consists of over 17,000 islands making IPSTAR a cost-effective way to provide connectivity throughout the country."

Pradeep Unni, vice president of international sales of Shin Satellite, Asia's leading commercial satellite operator, said: "We are delighted to sign with FirstAsia for IPSTAR gateway services and as a service provider for IPSTAR services in Indonesia. The gateway will be in FirstAsia's site in Jakarta. With the signing of the Indonesian deal we have accomplished a significant milestone of completing all gateways in Southeast Asia."

IPSTAR already provides full nationwide broadband satellite services in Australia, Cambodia, China, Laos, Thailand, Burma, New Zealand and Vietnam using 11 gateways. The Philippines and Malaysia gateways are under construction and will be completed by the end of the year. IPSTAR will continue to expand its coverage to the rest of Asia-Pacific in 2008.

TOT signs with Forth

The Nation (24 November 2007)

Thai-owned IT vendor Forth Corp has won a deal worth Bt850 million to supply broadband Internet equipment to TOT.

The state agency's board approved the deal yesterday, said TOT spokesman Colonel Natee Sukonrat.

The company recently quoted Bt860 million to win the bid, compared with TOT's referential price of Bt976 million, before TOT bargained with the company for a price reduction.

Under the deal, Forth will install 167,500 broadband Internet ports across the country, except in Bangkok, for TOT. The project is scheduled to be complete within 11 months after the signing of the deal. The broadband network must be the so-called Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) 2+ technology, which can offer connection speeds of eight megabits per second.

TOT aims for the broadband Internet access service to be its flagship to replace the voice service, which has experienced shrinking revenue. The state agency posted broadband Internet revenue of Bt1.488 billion as of August, up from Bt736 million over the same period last year. It has around 200,000 broadband Internet subscribers.

Natee said the nationwide project had nothing to do with an earlier appeal from the Army for equipment support in the South, as suspected by the press.

True Move adds record number of new users

Bangkok Post (23 November 2007)

True Move, the mobile phone service arm of True Corporation, yesterday announced a record 2.1 million new subscribers for the third quarter, bringing its total customer base to 11.2 million. Service revenues for the quarter reached 8.39 billion baht, up 44.1% over the same quarter last year.

Suphakit Vuntanadit, True Corp's marketing and customer experience relationship manager, attributed the success to the parent company's convergence strategy.

True operates fixed lines in Bangkok and also TrueVisions pay TV, home of the highly popular True Academy Fantasia reality show, which features SMS voting. TrueVisions' acquisition of exclusive rights for live telecasts of the English Premier League for three consecutive seasons also help all of the group's businesses.

Net additions for the third quarter represented 70% of the total net additions across the cellular industry. True Move's market share of mobile phone subscribers now stands at 22.8%, he said.

During the third quarter, supplementary and non-voice services generated strong income, with revenue from non-voice services increasing to 648 million baht, up 10% compared to last year.

The Thai mobile communications market has reached 50.1 million users, representing 77% of the overall population. In the third quarter of 2007, True Move subscribers accounted for 22.8% of the entire market, a 19.6% increase over the previous quarter.

He also forecast that next year operators would shift from a price war to a retention war in order to retain customers for as long as possible. The move was designed to adapt themselves with the interconnection charge in which each operator would focus on either low rates or free calls within the network.

True Move, he said, would deliver a diverse range of services that are different from those of its competitors.

In the last quarter of 2007, True Move will continue implementing its core strategy of providing the best value for consumers together with Convergence Lifestyle strategies.

A wide range of exclusive activities and campaigns will be introduced to boost the recognition of _ and loyalty toward _ True Move's offerings. This would allow the company to maintain market share and increase its new subscriber base to account for one-third of the net additions market, in line with the company's target, Mr Suphakit said.

Firms urged to back TOT-CAT plan

The Nation (23 November 2007)

TOT yesterday urged private telecom operators to sign a deal supporting TOT and CAT Telecom's plan to be the country's joint national telecommunications network provider.

Representatives of mobile-phone operators opposed the plan, which they regard as a state attempt to monopolise the networks. They said TOT's move would violate the fair-competition rules of the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC).

TOT called the meeting with Advanced Info Service, Total Access Communication, True Corp and TT&T yesterday to urge them to agree to support the plan by signing the memorandum of understanding, which will be presented to them soon.

The state agency floated the idea of becoming the national network provider to the four firms in a meeting on Tuesday this week and set up a committee chaired by board director ML Anuporn Kashemsant to work out further details of the project. A TOT source said that ML Anuporn yesterday declared that he would soon consult with the NTC on the project.

ML Anuporn added that the private telecom operators should not compete with TOT and CAT in offering network services but they could lease the networks from both to provide the services in competition with one another.

Legally, TOT and CAT are owners of their mobile concessionaires' networks but they cannot utilise them before the end of their concession periods.

A representative of TT&T proposed in the meeting that all of them set up a joint venture to operate the networks.

Each of the four private concessions would hold 20 per cent in the joint venture, while CAT and TOT would hold the remainder proportionately.

CAT submits revised plan

The Nation (23 November 2007)

CAT Telecom yesterday resubmitted the interconnection plan for the national telecommunications regulator's consideration in a move to come under new telecom regulations.
A source at CAT said the state agency wanted to comply with the regulations and if possible wants to stop paying the access charge to TOT.

CAT had recently submitted the interconnection plan or the so-called reference interconnection offering (RIO) for the approval of the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) but the regulator asked it to add more details. CAT resubmitted the RIO for the NTC's consideration yesterday.

The telecom operators need the NTC's approval for their RIO, which outlines the terms and conditions of the interconnection details, before they can negotiate with the other operators to forge bilateral interconnection-charge deals.

The interconnection-charge regulations will see the telecom operators share voice and data revenue between the networks involved in the calls on a fair basis.
Advanced Info Service, DTAC and True Move forged bilateral interconnection charge deals among themselves late last year.

The access charge is the cost DTAC, True Move and Digital Phone have paid to TOT for connecting different networks through TOT's facilities.

CAT has also paid the monthly access charge to TOT for Hutch on the basis of Bt200 per post-paid user and 18 per cent of revenue from pre-paid users, which it deems a huge cost.

Besides the access charge, CAT has to share half the revenue from Hutch with TOT under the access-charge agreement between TOT and CAT, the source added.

DTAC and True Move stopped paying the access charge to TOT last November to adopt the interconnection-charge rules. This prompted TOT last week to file civil lawsuits to demand the outstanding Bt10 billion access fee from DTAC and the overdue Bt4 billion access fee from True Move.

TOT, which has generally gained access fees of Bt14 billion, has continued to refuse to enter into negotiations with the three major cellular operators on the interconnection deals.

Telecoms body cuts type-3 licence fee

The Nation (23 November 2007)

The national telecom regulator yesterday approved lowering the type-3 licence fee to 2.5 per cent from the present 3 per cent of the licensee's revenue, due to the expected negative economic outlook next year.

However, a telecom analyst at one foreign brokerage house said he was disappointed with only a slight reduction, saying the National Telecommunica-tions Commission (NTC) should cut the fee to 1 per cent to reduce the licensees' burden.

NTC secretary-general Suranan Wongvithayakamjorn said the fee reduction would take effect early next year.

The type-3 licence is for applicants with their own large networks whose competition widely impacts mass consumers.

Suranan added that the fee reduction would not affect the NTC's financial status. The licensing body expects total regulatory fees - licence and phone-number fees - of around Bt2.8 billion this year, he said.

He said the NTC has yet to set a plan to cut the other regulatory fee.

The foreign brokerage-house analyst said the NTC should bring down the overall regulatory fee to the lowest level to enable telecom firms to pass on the benefits to consumers in the form of service-fee discounts.

"Don't forget that the NTC's purpose in collecting fees is to run its operation, not to generate revenue for the government. Therefore, it has no need to seek a huge regulatory fee," he said.
Suranan said the NTC will consider further cuts every year.

Wichian Mektrakarn,president of Advanced Info Service (AIS), said it is good thing that the NTC has cut the fee.

TOT and CAT Telecom are among the holders of type-3-licences.

Meanwhile, the licensing body's board has permitted True International Communications and Jastel Network to operate international data communications on a trial basis for another three months.

It also granted a licence to Jasmine Telecom System to operate 10,000 public telephones nationwide. The company will spend Bt165 million on developing the service over the next three years.