Thailand’s state-owned telco TOT corporation has announced it is to launch 4G LTE in Bangkok on 24 February.
The network will be between 100 to 200 nodes built on the existing 2.1-GHz 3G base stations.
TOT board chairman Udom Puasakul admitted to reporters that the existing 3G expansion project would not be completed by that date. TOT had earlier announced it was expanding to 5,320 base stations in Bangkok and major cities around the country by May 2012.
However, he did say that around 4,000 base stations would be operational by February.
Udom said TOT was in the process of hiring a consultant to conduct a study of changing phase two of its 3G network going straight to LTE. TOT had planned a further 15,000 base stations in the second phase of its 3G network, with a budget of 30 billion baht.
TOT was the first telco in Thailand to launch 3G on 2.1-GHz in December 2009. However, three years later the network remains skeletal due to lack of direction and political interference that has left the state telco leaderless for months at a time.
The last board resigned en masse in September 2012 after the discovery of a rogue exchange that interfaced with TOT’s network, with the previous chairman accusing senior TOT officials of corruption and collusion with former TOT executives in operating the exchange. The matter has since gone quiet.