CAT may let carriers buy back networks

Dylan Bushell-Embling
30 Nov 2011
00:00

Thai state-owned operator CAT Telecom is considering allowing three private telcos to buy back their networks before they are forced to relinquish them.

CAT management will present a network sales proposal to the new board next week, acting CEO Viroj Tocharonevanith toldthe Nation.

TrueMove, DTAC and Digital Phone Co (DPC) are all operating under a concession agreement with CAT. Under the build-operate-transfer terms of the concession agreement, they would need to transfer their networks to the state-owned operator after the agreement expires.

True Move and DPC's concessions expire in 2013, while DTAC's ends in 2018.

CAT already has approval from the ICT ministry to proceed with the network sales, and the proposal had been cleared by the previous board.

If the plan is approved, CAT will hire a consultant to appraise the networks in order to come up with a sale price.

True Move has already attempted to buy back its conventional mobile network, offering 10 billion baht ($320 million) in September, but Tocharonevanith said CAT had considered this offer too low.

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