CAT Telecom Seeking Overseas Partner for 3G Network

Thailand's CAT Telecom is to seek a partner to assist it in bidding for a 3G licenses and roll out the network when successful. CAT executive committee chairman Krisda Kaweeyarn told The Nation newspaper that the board had told management to study several possible partnership models and that the potential partner could be either a local or a foreign telecom operator.

A couple of months ago, CAT Telecom's new CEO, Jirayuth Roongsrithong said that he wanted to look for a foreign strategic partner to run and deliver the network's planned 3G service.

He also planed to prioritise taking over Hutchison's CDMA network in the central provinces and integrating it into a single national CDMA network. CAT's CDMA 2000 1-x cellular service in 51 provinces currently has 350,000 subscribers, against a target of 500,000 for this year. CAT's own CDMA network covers 51 provinces in the country, while the Hutch network - itself a JV between CAT and Hutchison Telecom - covers the remaining 25 central provinces, along with the capital city.

The country has repeatedly delayed its 3G license auction and this is now not expected to occur until next year at the earliest.

In related news, the company has agreed to set up an internal committee to resolve a long standing dispute with China's Huawei over a CDMA rollout contract where the two parties disagreed over the completion date for aspects of the network.

Figures from the Mobile World database show that the CAT Telecom/Hutch ended the first quarter of this year with around 1.4 million subscribers and a market share of just 2%.

On the web: The Nation - Mobile World

Posted to the site on 21st August 2009