3G mobile phone service on hold

The Finance Ministry is the major shareholder of CAT Telecom and will hold a shareholders' meeting at the end of April to appoint a new board. Therefore, it was deemed appropriate to let the new board approve the two operators, said Thaneerat Siripachana, deputy permanent secretary of the Information and Communication Technology Ministry.

Mr. Siripachana, who also chairs CAT's concession monitoring committee, said the state telecommunication enterprise had no intention to delay 3G commercial launches by private operators but everything should proceed according to the established process. He said the Council of State, the government's legal advisory body, had already advised CAT to make its own decision on whether to allow True Move to offer 3G service on the 850 Megahertz spectrum.

He said earlier that CAT, due to True's concession for 1800 MHz, was uncertain if it could allow True Move to offer 3G service on 850 MHz. True Move could treat the concession irreverently if it offered service on a bandwidth for which it had no concession.

DTAC plans to run its 3G service on bandwidth for which it has a concession, but it still needs final approval from the CAT board. Mr. Siripachana said the existing CAT board was disinclined to make a decision because it was in a transition period and could be accused of irregularities.

True Move is allying with CAT Telecom to set up 3G trial service, but using DTAC's existing analogue 850 MHz frequency to upgrade to HSPA.

The National Telecommunication Commission granted approval to DTAC, True Move and Advanced Info Service for 3G trials using HSPA last August.

DTAC plans to spend five billion Baht on the first phase of 3G services covering Bangkok, Phuket and Chonburi, with commercial ser-vices starting within one year. DTAC has NTC permission to deploy 1,200 base stations and True Move 650.

AIS have introduced limited 3G services commercially in Bangkok under its US$150-million first-phase plan.

It planned to spend $60 million to install a total of 600 3G base stations on its existing 900 MHz frequency with HSPA technology in Chiang Mai, Bangkok and Chonburi in the first quarter of 2009.

AIS plan a pilot commercial launch of 3G in Chiang Mai on May 6.