Dtac CEO Lars Norling has brushed aside rumours that parent company Telenor has given up on Thailand after it failed to secure any new licences in the past two rounds.
Dtac has already launched LTE on 2100 in 40 of Thailand’s 76 provinces and still has 850 and 1800 networks until 2018. Norling promised to continue to upgrade its network to provide 100-MBPS class service nationwide.
Earlier, The Nationquoted an unnamed CAT Telecom board member that CAT was about to extend Dtac’s concession to 2025 and launch a new 4G concession soon 20 MHz of 1800-MHz spectrum.
The board member said that this time CAT would do things properly and send the project for cabinet approval so that this time the National Counter Corruption Commission wouldn’t investigate CAT like it is now doing with the True 850 deal.
For its part, Dtac only admitted to be in negotiations and is considering the True-BFKT-CAT wholesale model.
Last week, the Auditor-General summarised the damage the True / BFKT wholesale deal had done to the country at over $1.2 billion and is soon to launch criminal charges against CAT executives responsible for the deal.
AIS on the other hand defended dropping out of the 900-MHz auction that went for over $2.1 billion saying the money would not make for a rational investment and would rather preserve its financial flexibility for future projects in today’s dynamic environment.
“Our latest accomplishment is the achievement of a joint venture agreement with TOT PCL in adding 15 MHz of 2100 MHz frequencies to our service provision,” said AIS CEO Somchai Lertsuthiwong.
This would effectively add TOT’s 15-MHz of spectrum to AIS’ own 15-MHz and allow TOT’s small handful of customers to roam onto AIS. TOT has 5,400 base stations to AIS 25,000 on 2100.
AIS however has a more immediate problem with 11 million 2G users. 1 million of them are registered on the old AIS 2G network, while 10 million are on the new 3G entity but with their SIMs in 2G phones. To this end, AIS has launched a free 3G handset upgrade programme with a dumphone free with a $2.7 (100-Baht) topup and a 3,5-inch 3G smartphone free with just a $21 (790 Baht) topup.