Channel 0206 Carrier Telephone Network

TANDBERG First to Demonstrate Immersive Three-Screen Telepresence Interoperability with Cisco TelePresence

2010-02-07T02:43:00.000-08:00

TANDBERG Total Telepresence solution delivers additional immersive third-party telepresence interoperability capabilities for expanded company-to-company collaboration.

TANDBERG (OSLO: TAA.OL) announced it has successfully demonstrated telepresence interoperability between TANDBERG Telepresence and the Cisco CTS 3000. This demonstration, the first of its kind, was enabled by integrating Cisco's new Telepresence Interoperability Protocol (TIP) into the award-winning TANDBERG Telepresence Server. With this integration, TANDBERG now adds Cisco TelePresence solutions to the list of third-party telepresence solutions it can seamlessly interoperate with while maintaining the three-screen, high-definition telepresence experience.

"As we build a global video community, it is imperative that organizations are not locked in by technology," said Fredrik Halvorsen, TANDBERG CEO. "Our Total Telepresence solution is interoperable with a broad range of third-party solutions, including those from Polycom and Microsoft. We are very happy to now deliver even greater value to our customers by bringing participants on TANDBERG Telepresence and Cisco TelePresence together with an immersive, three-screen experience. Today's demonstration reflects TANDBERG's continued commitment to open standards, providing scalable solutions and protecting our customers' video investments for the future."

According to Frost & Sullivan, although many companies initially think of telepresence as a substitute for the corporate jet, the technology holds even more value when it can seamlessly link to other video conferencing solutions - within and outside of an organization - to ensure all necessary participants can attend any meeting. TANDBERG customers have seen the exponential value of interoperability between third-party telepresence and video conferencing for company-to-company collaboration while maintaining the best experience possible. TANDBERG is consistently the first to deliver the most advanced interoperability solutions to the market, demonstrated by:

* TANDBERG first to demonstrate a multi-screen, high-definition telepresence call with Cisco TelePresence CTS 3000 (see video).

* TANDBERG first to deliver a telepresence solution that can interoperate with third-party telepresence systems while maintaining the immersive telepresence experience.

* TANDBERG first to enable high definition video between Microsoft Office Communicator and immersive multi-screen telepresence.

* TANDBERG first to deliver a complete portfolio of HD telepresence and video conferencing solutions that can interoperate with any other standards compliant systems both within an organization and company-to-company.

Interoperability with Cisco CTS 3000 and other Cisco systems will be available through a software upgrade to the TANDBERG Telepresence Server later this year. For more information about the TANDBERG Total Telepresence solution, visit http://www.tandberg.com or call or contact moreinfo@TANDBERG.com .
About TANDBERG

TANDBERG is the leading global provider of telepresence, high-definition video conferencing and mobile video products and services with dual headquarters in New York and Norway. TANDBERG designs, develops and markets systems and software for video, voice and data. The company provides sales, support and value-added services in more than 90 countries worldwide. TANDBERG is publicly traded on the Oslo Stock Exchange under the ticker TAA.OL. Please visit http://www.tandberg.com for more information.

TANDBERG is a trademark or registered trademark in the U.S. and other countries. All other product and company names here in may be trademarks of their respective owners.

NTT Communications Corp. Selects Sandvine

2010-02-07T02:38:00.001-08:00

Sandvine, (TSX: SVC)(AIM: SAND) a leading provider of intelligent broadband network solutions for Cable, DSL, FTTx, fixed wireless and mobile operators, today announced that NTT Communications Corporation, Japan's leading provider of global networks, management solutions and ICT services, has selected Sandvine's Policy Traffic Switch (PTS) for a nationwide deployment on their high speed network. The latest win builds on NTT Communications' purchases in previous periods.

Sandvine's PTS platform provides a layer of intelligence into broadband and wireless networks offering operators meaningful business-level information for market creation, quota management and capacity planning.

"We are delighted to be selected by NTT Communications after a rigorous technical review," Dave Caputo, President and CEO, Sandvine. "Our platform and applications were tried and tested to ensure they meet the usage demands of close to eight million subscribers on NTT Communications' network-another demonstration that Sandvine offers the most proven high-performance platform available today."

Sandvine's PTS platform scales to meet the demands of the world's largest service providers' networks with unique virtual switch cluster technology.
ABOUT NTT COMMUNICATIONS CORPORATION

NTT Communications provides a broad range of global networks, management solutions and IT services to customers worldwide. The company is renowned for reliable, high-quality security, hosting, voice, data and IP services, as well as expertise in managed networks and leadership in IPv6 transit technology. NTT Communications' extensive infrastructure includes Arcstar(TM) Global IP-VPN and

Global e-VLAN, as well as a Tier-1 IP backbone reaching more than 150 countries in partnership with major Internet service providers, and secure data centers in Asia, North America and Europe. NTT Communications is the wholly-owned subsidiary of Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation, one of the world's largest telecoms with

listings on the Tokyo, London and New York stock exchanges. Please visit www.ntt.com/index-e.html.
ABOUT SANDVINE

Sandvine is focused on protecting and improving the quality of experience on the Internet. Our award-winning network equipment and solutions help cable, DSL, FTTx, fixed wireless and mobile operators better serve their subscribers and understand network trends; offer new services; mitigate malicious traffic; manage network congestion; and deliver QoS-prioritized multimedia services. With broadband service provider customers in over 70 countries serving hundreds of millions of fixed and mobile subscribers, Sandvine is enhancing the Internet experience worldwide. www.sandvine.com
FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS

Certain statements in this release constitute forward-looking statements or forward-looking information within the meaning of applicable securities laws and are made pursuant to the "safe harbor" provisions of such laws. In particular, this release refers to the selection of Sandvine's technology by a particular customer, however, there is no guarantee that this selection decision will result in an actual purchase or any meaningful level of revenue to Sandvine and Sandvine's stated expectations as to the timing of deployment of the technology by this customer are based solely on the customer's current projections, which may change at any time. In addition, statements related to potential benefits of, and demand for, Sandvine's products or services including statements with respect to the features and benefits that may be achieved through the use of Sandvine's products or services and the relative position of these products vis-a-vis competitive offerings in the industry are forward-looking statements which are subject to certain assumptions, risks and uncertainties. These risks and uncertainties include such factors as rapid technological changes, changes in customer architecture and equipment deployment requirements, the introduction of competing technologies, the risks and uncertainties of new product introductions, dependence on key supplies and other similar factors that may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of

Sandvine to differ materially from the results, performance, achievements or developments expressed or implied by such forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on such statements. Sandvine assumes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

FCF to Rebound in Asia-Pacific's Telecom Sector in 2010

2010-01-29T23:06:00.000-08:00

Fitch Ratings has today said in a just published report that the 2010 outlook for the overall Asia-Pacific telecom sector remains stable. "Most operators will be able to continue to weather any adverse economic conditions and maintain their credit profiles thanks to robust liquidity, relatively low gearing, and strong free cash flow (FCF) generation," says Matt Jamieson, Senior Director and Head of Fitch's Asia Pacific Telecoms Media and Technology team. Although competitive factors look set to drive revenue growth and margins lower in 2010E, curtailed capital expenditure budgets are likely to result in higher FCF generation for the average Asia-Pacific telecom operator.

Fitch expects top-line revenues for the 23 telecom operators it rates across Asia Pacific to rise by an average of only 2.7% in 2010E, which, although up from the prior year, is well below 2008's 7.7%. "Whereas average revenue growth has historically remained above GDP growth, the sector appears to have reached an inflexion point in 2009 - with average revenue growth below the weighted average Asia-Pacific country GDP growth of 1.9%," adds Mr. Jamieson. "While the economic downturn may play a small part, rising penetration levels and tariff-discounting in emerging markets, including China India, Indonesia and Thailand, are the more important factors keeping a lid on the average telecom operator's revenue growth in 2010," adds Mr. Jamieson.

The average EBITDA margin for Asia-Pacific telecom operators is estimated to have fallen to 38.9% in 2009E from 40.2% in 2008, and the agency anticipates that ongoing competitive pressures will result in a further decline to 38.0% in 2010E. Cash flow from operations (CFO) remains strong; and with aggregate capex likely to fall (particularly in Australia, China, India and Indonesia), the agency expects a 61% increase in aggregate FCF generation during 2010. However the agency forecasts the median operator among the 23 to generate slightly negative FCF; and, in conjunction with falling EBITDA margins, Fitch feels that the median leverage ratio (as measured by adjusted net debt/EBITDAR) will actually increase to 1.7x (2009: 1.5x).

While credit metrics may deteriorate slightly in 2010, Fitch believes that, in general, most operators' financial profiles will remain comfortable for their current rating levels.

The report, entitled "Asia Pacific Telecoms Credit Outlook 2010", is now available on the agency's website, www.fitchratings.com. The report also contains 11 one-page country summary outlooks covering the major credit issues for the agency's rated telecom issuers across the region.

AIS ANNOUNCES 2010 VISION ON TELECOMS INDUSTRY INTRODUCING THE CONCEPT “ECOSYSTEM,”

2010-01-24T04:23:00.001-08:00

AIS ANNOUNCES 2010 VISION ON TELECOMS INDUSTRY INTRODUCING THE CONCEPT “ECOSYSTEM,” COOPERATION, DEPENDENCE AND GROWTH TOGETHER FOR HIGHEST BENEFIT OF THAI PEOPLE

AIS announces 2010 Vision on Telecoms Industry, introducing the concept Ecosystem - the ecosystem of communication world gearing towards synergy, dependence and growth together, delivering highest benefits to every group of Thai consumers, riding the trend of communication technology convergence featuring “Total Communication.”

The management team of Advanced Info Service (Public) Co., Ltd., led by Mr. Somprasong Boonyachai, Vice Chairman Of The Board Mr. Wichian Mektrakarn, CEO and Mr. Somchai Lertsuttiwong, EVP Marketing, co-host the public conference on the overall picture of telecoms industry and AIS direction emphasizing orchestrated cooperation with alliance just like the ecosystem.

In 2009, the telecom usage of Thai people recorded a significant growth, particularly in mobile Internet, wireless Internet and Broadband Internet, reflecting consumer behavior obviously switching to convergence service. They use mobile phone to call, connect Internet, watch TV, download music, upload photos or videos to Social Network and Chat through BlackBerry. This formulates a “Total Communication.” AIS has developed service in tandem with such behavior. Besides retaining No. 1 Mobile Operator, today AIS plays increasing roles as;

- Largest distribution channel of Digital Music with over 20 million downloads, 60% of which represent the download through Call Center.

- Largest Internet Service Provider (ISP) with over 6.5 million Mobile Phone Internet users

- Pioneer of Lifestyle for consumers in entering the experience of Mobile Email, Social Networking through Smart Phone such as BlackBerry occupying over 100,000 users.

- Market builder for Wireless Internet by launching AIS Aircard serving over 300,000 customers, or over 20% of Internet use in Thailand.

Mr. Somprasong unveiled “For the year 2010, demand and usage behavior will remain the same as in the past year. More concentration and enhancement will be placed in Mobile Internet, Broadband and download service via wireless network. To deliver services that completely meet demand, every part associated with telecommunication industry need to capitalize on its best resource to work in harmony and proceed together in the orchestrated uniform, depend on each other and promote Seamless Connection featuring Ecosystem – the Ecosystem of communication world in an effort to creating collaborative service providing optimal solution for consumers as well as contributing to the reinforcement of country’s telecoms industry.

With regard to the composition of Ecosystem, Mr. Wichian added “Initially, we look into 5 integral parts including Device, Customer Assistant, Content Partners, Solution Partners and Business Alliances from a broad spectrum of industry. The collaboration incorporated by the proposed concept is believed to liberate the frame of telecommunication services, give unexpected experience from best quality, enhance business management efficiency and render privileges upgrading living standard of consumers.”

“However, to ensure the unsurpassed services provided by strong commitment, network quality serves as the key and solid fundamentals. Over the past 20 years, AIS has ceaselessly developed its network recognized as “Most trusted network” as a result of service coverage coming with network quality as well as convergence of Wireless and Wired-line technology. Lately, AIS is considered the only Mobile Operator offering widest 3G service area following the cooperation with TOT (Public) Co., Ltd., the Concession Owner. AIS customers have options to access wireless Internet service via EDGE/GPRS network embracing nationwide coverage and 3G of 900 MHz and 2100 MHz frequency”

Mr. Somchai stressed the benefits of consumers “When the fundamentals are well prepared, the functionalities based on Ecosystem will continue productively, shape service formats and fuel the growth of telecommunications industry due to the harmonious and balanced living of all parties. For example, the marketing of communication device will include not only the sourcing of superb handsets for customers, but also the synergy between Service Providers tailoring service packages and customized contents as well as solutions that bring ultimately exclusive experiences. This exemplifies how the working concept is materialized.”

In the AIS Vision 2010, AIS introduces some services from the cooperation with Partners, such as;

1. Nokia N900, the latest Smart Phone from Nokia that allows AIS customers to gain great experience from Internet Application and bundling package

2. BlackBerry New Bold, the latest innovation from BlackBerry, available for reservation today

3. AIS 3G Aircard 7 Mbps, the fastest Wireless Broadband connection to the Internet

4. AIS App Store connecting AIS customers to the unlimited world of Contents coming with a broad array of Applications to choose from
5. MSN SIM, a direct connection to MSN from your handsets
6. Mobile Pay wave Actual creating Contactless Mobile Payment Service
7. Variety Superior Privilege from various exclusive for AIS customer only

“As the Total Telecoms Service Leader, we strongly believe in the power of all players related to this industry and will be ready to play an intermediary role in rendering best services from the collaboration under the concept Ecosystem to every group of consumers. Not only will this paradigm shift benefit people, but also propel sustainable growth of Thai telecommunications industry.”

dtac responds to the social networking trend by preparing dtac Internet especially to serve New Year greetings

2010-01-17T05:13:00.001-08:00

Pakorn Pannachet, Head of dtac’s VAS Division, said dtac prepared its nationwide network to support traffic during the New Year. dtac realizes that the 3 main social networking systems namely Facebook, Twitter and BBM (BlackBerry Messaging) are the very quickly accelerating trend of 2009 while SMS and MMS are still gaining in popularity compared with last year.

“We have seen the increasing use of smart phones throughout this year. At present dtac customers use 400,000-500,000 smart phones and we believe that New Year greetings via smart phones should focus on social networking especially through Facebook and Twitter. In Thailand about 1.7 million people are using Facebook and about 60,000 people are doing Twitter. For the dtac customers who uses dtac’s BlackBerry Service, we have prepared our network to support more convenient and faster BBM use in Thailand through dtac Internet.”

“SMS and MMS should not be less popular than they were in the past years. We expect New Year greetings via SMS to increase from 49.95 million messages last year to about 65-70 million messages and those via MMS should rise from 656,000 messages last year to about 800,000-1 million messages. dtac has prepared its systems to support the transmission of 7,500 messages per second, up from the normal capacity of 2,000 messages per second. So customers are assured that dtac’s network can meet their demands limitlessly,” Pakorn said.

Besides, dtac has also prepared its network by increasing channel capacities at New Year celebration venues in major provinces of all regions. For Bangkok, it has prepared mobile units and increased the capacities of base stations to serve communication traffic surges in several areas including bus terminals, airports and highways leading to other provinces.

TrueMove Teams Up With Japan’s Mediaseek to Launch QR Code Reader Application in Thailand Paving the way to a new TrueMove 3G experience

2009-12-16T20:14:00.000-08:00

To reinforce its position as Thailand’s most innovative service provider, TrueMove today officially launched QR Code technology in Thailand in collaboration with Mediaseek, Japan’s leading QR Code company. This new innovation will pave the way towards 3G services in the future and give customers a new experience in accessing content and services. With TrueMove’s “Fun Living Lifestyle” concept, Thai consumers can now easily access content via camera phones such as music downloads or watch TV and receive special privileges. The QR Code opens a new era of exciting Interactive marketing campaigns and unique promotions. Learn more about QR Code and TrueMove 3G and get a chance to win an iPhone 3G S by visiting www.truemove.com/3G from December 15, 2009 – January 15, 2010. Consumers can now experience QR Code and download the free QR Code Reader application onto their camera phones by visiting http://m.truelife.com

The QR Code (also known as a matrix code) is a two-dimensional bar code that a mobile phone equipped with special software can read using its camera, a process called mobile tagging. Information embedded in the QR code such as a URL can then launch the mobile phone’s browser, establishing a hardlink to any location on the Internet. By simply taking a photo of a QR Code on a poster, advertisement, display or practically anywhere, TrueMove customers can automatically access related content over the Internet via their mobile phones without having to type the necessary details or the URL.

According to Mr. Piroon Paireepairit, Director, Multimedia Services Content & Marketing, True Corporation Plc., “Our company’s exclusive collaboration with Mediaseek brings one of the most popular and trendy mobile phone applications in Japan to the Thai market. TrueMove, Thailand’s leading communications innovator, is delighted to offer Thai consumers the opportunity join the QR Code revolution under the concept of ‘Fun Living Lifestyle.’ They will be able to access content such as news updates and music downloads as well as watch TV or music videos and receive special privileges easily by using their camera phones to scan QR Codes from marketing materials such as posters, leaflets and point-of-purchase displays. TrueMove has already started using QR Codes to promote its 3G trial service, and customers will enjoy an increasing number of special benefits as we integrate QR Codes into a variety of other lifestyle applications.”

“Mediaseek is a fully-integrated IT solution provider company, and our QR Code reader software holds the number one share in the Japanese mobile phone market,” said Mr. Naoki Nishio, President & CEO of Mediaseek Inc. “We have exclusive rights for the “i-nigma” service, which is based on the most widely-used mobile barcode reader in Japan and has been redesigned for overseas mobile phone handsets. We are pleased to partner with TrueMove to offer our breakthrough QR Code technology to Thai consumers.”

Developed in Japan, QR Codes are very popular among Japanese mobile phone users for marketing campaigns, recording data such as addresses or providing information for almost any other purpose. QR Codes can also activate SMS for response messages, offering a new level of interactive mobile marketing. QR Code reader software can run on all major mobile phone platforms.

To experience using QR Codes, TrueMove customers can download the free reader software onto their camera phones by visiting http://m.truelife.com and participate in the special marketing campaign to win an iPhone 3G S at www.truemove.com/3G from December 15, 2009 – January 15, 2010.

QR Code® is registered trademarks of Denso Wave Incorporated in Japan and other countries.

TeliaSonera and Huawei Launch World’s Fastest Commercial Mobile Broadband Network with Huawei’s 4G/LTE Solutions

2009-12-16T18:22:00.001-08:00

TeliaSonera and Huawei Launch World’s Fastest Commercial Mobile Broadband Network with Huawei’s 4G/LTE Solutions

Huawei, a leader in providing next-generation telecommunications network solutions for operators around the world, and TeliaSonera, the largest telecoms operator in Scandinavia and the Baltic countries, today jointly announced the deployment of the world’s first LTE commercial network in Oslo, Norway. These 4G services offer maximum speeds of up to 100 Mb/s and are approximately 10 times faster than existing 3G networks.

TeliaSonera’s customers will be the first in the world to enjoy simultaneous mobile broadband services such as high definition (HD) video conferencing in mobile environments and a variety of HD video programs via multiple terminal devices; applications that cannot be realized in current 3G networks.

Mr. Kenneth Karlberg, President and Head of Mobility Services TeliaSonera, said: “We are very proud to be the first operator in the world to offer our customers 4G services. Thanks to the successful cooperation with Huawei, we can offer 4G to our customers in Oslo earlier than originally planned.”

As a leading provider of end-to-end 4G/LTE solutions, Huawei delivered both network infrastructures and services to TeliaSonera, such as access network, core network, operation support system, and network planning and optimization. Its field proven fourth-generation base stations and SAE (System Architecture Evolution) solution ensure the stability of the network and enable fast deployment.

Yu Chengdong, President of Huawei Europe, said: “In partnership with TeliaSonera, Huawei began this journey eleven months ago to introduce the world’s most advanced mobile broadband technology to the residents of Oslo. This milestone, which was achieved in a short period of time, reflects Huawei’s unwavering commitment towards accelerating the commercialization of LTE/SAE solutions. Operators such as TeliaSonera, are now able to to fully realize economic benefits from the many new applications that can only be made possible with ultra broadband services.”

To date, Huawei has constructed over 25 LTE commercial and trial networks and has made more than 3,300 LTE/SAE contributions to 3GPP (3rd Generation Partnership Project).
About Huawei

Huawei is a leader in providing next generation telecommunications networks, and now serves 36 of the world’s top 50 operators, along with over one billion users worldwide. The company is committed to providing innovative and customized products, services and solutions to create long-term value and growth potential for its customers.

Health Care, Telecommunications, And Chemicals Likely Will See More Upgrades Than Other Sectors In 2010, Article Says

2009-12-15T19:02:00.001-08:00

Credit quality is slowly beginning to stabilize across nonfinancial industries, though rating activity remains more negative than positive, said an article published today by Standard & Poor's, titled "Three U.S. Industries With The Greatest Potential To Improve Their Credit Quality In 2010 (Premium)." As the economy slowly rebounds in 2010, we expect to see areas of improvement, though upgrades likely will trail downgrades in most sectors.

"After reviewing the distribution of outlooks and CreditWatch listings, ratings trends, the performance of bond spreads, and recent operating results, we identified three sectors that we believe have the potential to see an upturn in creditworthiness next year," said Diane Vazza, head of Standard & Poor's Global Fixed Income Research. "These three are health care, telecommunications, and chemicals."

Health care, which weathered the storm better than most sectors, has a relatively high positive bias (the proportion of issuers with a positive outlook or ratings on CreditWatch positive) and has seen relatively strong operating results.

The telecommunications sector also has fared well during the recession, despite having a number of highly leveraged companies. Improvement in economic and credit market conditions is supportive of continued stabilization and potential improvement in the credit quality of the telecommunications sector.

The chemicals sector has performed much worse than the other two sectors during the recession, though it has begun to show signs of stabilization. Given the cyclical nature of the sector, stronger economic conditions in 2010 could give credit quality a boost.

This article is part of our premium Global Fixed Income Research content, which is available to premium subscribers to RatingsDirect on the Global Credit Portal at www.globalcreditportal.com and to RatingsDirect at www.ratingsdirect.com. Ratings information can also be found on Standard & Poor's public Web site by using the Ratings search box located in the left column at www.standardandpoors.com. Members of the media may request a copy of this report by contacting the media representative provided.

Ericsson to provide SingTel full end-to-end LTE trial system in Singapore

2009-12-15T04:48:00.001-08:00

Ericsson to provide SingTel full end-to-end LTE trial system in Singapore
Company will leverage its extensive experience to bring LTE to life in Singapore

Ericsson (NASDAQ:ERIC), announced today that they will tap on its industry-leading LTE expertise to provide SingTel with a full end-to-end trial system in Singapore, commencing in the early part of 2010. The trial marks the first phase in jump-starting deployment of 4G LTE networks for Asia’s leading telecommunications operator, which has a regional mobile-user base of more than 273 million.

Ericsson will be testing high bandwidth data and multimedia services over the trial systems, which will encompass the Radio Access Network, Evolved Packet Core Network, Mobile Backhaul Solutions and Operation Support Systems.

The trial, which will take place over a period of six to nine months, will start off on a modest and contained scale and progress over time.

Mr. Mark Chong Chin Kok, SingTel’s Executive Vice President of Networks, says, “We are pleased to collaborate with Ericsson on this LTE trial, which will allow us to better understand this technology and prepare us in offering our customers the fastest mobile broadband speeds and services available in the market. This is aligned with SingTel’s transformation towards becoming the next-generation multimedia solutions company.”

“We are very honoured to partner SingTel to support its network transformation and LTE strategy. Through this test phase, Ericsson’s trusted and proven solutions will meet SingTel’s needs, enabling both companies to explore new services in the ultra high-speed wireless space together,” says Mr. Fadi Pharaon, President and Country Manager for Ericsson Singapore and Brunei.

dtac introduces dSmart solution to improve customer experience

2009-11-20T23:03:00.000-08:00

dtac today announced its deployment of ‘dSmart’, a solution that enables it to monitor network performance and customer experience from a single center. The move aims to deliver the greatest satisfaction to customers as problems can be solved at much faster speed.

Tore Johnsen, Chief Executive Officer of Total Access Communication Public Company Limited (dtac), said dtac implemented HP’s dSmart, the solution that comprises of a set of “off-the-shelf” standard applications to speed delivery of services and improve service quality on the back of BT850 million budget.

dSmart is a one-stop and comprehensive network monitoring and service management system that comes with customer experience management solution.

Installed at dtac’s Service Operation Center (SOC), a consolidation of dtac’s five network operations monitoring centers, dSmart enables dtac staff to view of all incidents and problem, no matter if it comes from an IT fault, a network fault or a customer complain in a real-time manner. The system gives tools to help assess the root cause to a problem faster, helps it fix the problem faster, and reduces the outage time and the customer impact.

dtac considers the spending as its long-term investment. It intends to improve customer services, reduces the duplication of work and increase efficiency. This will finally become its main strategy for customer retention and the strength that will certainly underlie its competitiveness.

“We are the first operator in Thailand and the first company in Telenor Group to implement a customer experience management solution. Under the present economic circumstances, all organizations place importance on cost efficiency and dtac is among them. However, when it comes to the greatest benefits of customers, this investment is what we are willing to make to guarantee that we can ensure utmost satisfaction for all customers. Importantly, as saturation is leading mobile phone business to new forms of competition, we need to be more customer-centric, focusing on giving the best service to customer. This system will enable us to efficiently meet the increasing and more complicated demands of customers,” Tore said.

Rolf Marthinusen, Chief Technology Officer of dtac, said that the system was developed to create the real-time and automatic management of networks and services. It is aimed at speeding up solutions when customers confront problems in using services.

dSmart increases the potential and capacity of dtac in supervising and monitoring its networks, solving problems faster and preventing them from affecting users. Earlier, network-related data had to be supervised through 20-30 monitors. Today SOC officials can see all the data on a single screen and thus solve customers’ problems faster and more efficiently. For example, if a customer has a problem of EDGE/GPRS connection, officials can find out right away if it results from a network or a wrong mobile phone setting and recommend a solution in no time. If a connection problem results from a network, the system will report the incident on screen automatically so that officials can analyze the problem and solve it before a customer is affected.

“Our goal is to halve the time we need to solve problems in networks. dSmart increases the visibility of overall problems. It enables the monitoring of network performances and thus results in the fast prevention of problems. It also helps analyze the networks and facilitates early plans to service the networks. All these meet our demands to provide customers with positive experiences,” Rolf said.

Dr. Beng Teck Liang, Managing Director of Hewlett-Packard (Thailand) Ltd. said that dtac’s objectives are centered on lowering cost and improving customer service and quality. With HP NGOSS, network and IT processes are streamlined and automated, resulting in savings in dtac’s operational expenditure.

dSmart solution is the HP NGOSS solutions supported by HP Solutions Consulting Services provides dtac with a single view to enable prioritization of business requests and network incident that drives better customer service and business outcomes. By adopting a proactive and automated approach towards the infrastructure and IT management, and coupled with Arantech’s Customer Experience Management touchpointtm system, dtac can effectively identify and rectify problems in real time and in an automated fashion before they occur or impact business and customers.

HP Solutions Consulting Services (SCS) helped dtac define its business and operational needs, focusing on the optimum OSS organization, process and solutions set. SCS also provided project governance throughout the deployment. dtac took advantage of HP COSMOS, a repository of methodologies, best practices and intellectual property gained from more than 400 OSS deployments worldwide.

To enhance the delivery of quality services to dtac’s 19 million customers, HP has integrated the service operation center and network control centre into a one-stop service centre, helping dtac achieve a double-digit reduction in OPEX overhead. In addition, dtac also saw a reduction in operational cost for streamlining and automation of the network and IT management and processes.

“dtac is also able to proactively identify the system or connectivity issues and rectify the problems in real time before it affects the customers. This results in greater customer satisfaction,” Dr. Beng said.

For more photos of dtac's Service Operation Center (SOC), click http://www.dtac.co.th/eng/news/soc.php
About dtac

Total Access Communication Public Company Limited (dtac) is a leading mobile phone operator in Thailand, serving 19.3 million phone numbers to customers (as of third quarter). It was founded in August 1989 and it has been operating as a leading mobile phone operator in the country since then. For more information, please visit www.dtac.co.th.
About HP

HP creates new possibilities for technology to have a meaningful impact on people, businesses and society. The world’s largest technology company, HP brings together a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure to solve customer problems. More information about HP (NYSE: HPQ) is available at http://www.hp.com.
The dSmart solution consists of 6 main modules as follows.

- Fault Management boosts monitoring efficiency, enables the visibility of overall problems and discovers the root causes of problems. Consequently problems can be detected and solved quickly.

- Inventory Management System handles unusual incidents. It records every unusual incident so dtac knows what in its systems cause a problem to customers. This allows efficient inventory management.

- Trouble Ticketing System helps cope with the incidents or problems that occur within dtac’s systems or with customers. It also covers the workflow of the company because it enables officials to monitor the status of a problem from the time of detecting the problem to the complete solution of the problem (life cycle). This shortens times needed for solutions.

- Performance Management enables the monitoring of dtac’s network efficiency and quality. It helps us foresee problems before they really happen and affect customers.

- Customer Experience Management helps provide customers with quality services and efficiently check the transmission of voices and data via mobile phones. It can look into the services that customers use when they encounter the problems of signals and mobile phone connectivity. This enables officials to identify the right causes of problems and solve them before customers are aware of any difficulty.

- International Direct Dialling helps monitoring both Outbound and Inbound customer including the customers who make the international call via dtac International Direct Dialling Service. Moreover, This tool also collect all performance data of our of dtac Carrier to ensure their service's reliability and according to the agreed Service Level Agreement.

3G technology and apps already in place

2009-11-13T00:03:00.000-08:00

       Although further delays and unclear legal issues continue to hamper the roll-out of 3G in Thailand, it has already been proved that the devices and applications can support the technology. Only network readiness is missing.
       In the seminar "Business Development in Cloud Computing and 3G Technology" by University of the Thai Chamber of Commerce, DTAC's Thinakorn Thianprathum said that currently Thailand has 15 million devices ready to connect to mobile wireless broadband networks. The figure is comprised of 10 million installed base computers and 5 million 3G-enabled phones. But there is no available commercial service yet.
       When the network becomes available,it will encourage business development in many areas, especially mobile advertising and internet payments.
       In an existing example, some mobile operators in the UK offer free airtime or text messages to users in return for them accepting mobile advertising.
       It is possible that the system can learn user behaviour and send advertising that suits the individual as well as open more opportunities to sell to target audiences,including traditional media providers.
       Supreecha Limpikanjanakowit, Managing Director of Advanced mPay under AIS, added that when combining broadband and cloud computing technology,IT costs can be significantly reduced because users can use 3G devices to access applications on the cloud.
       Using software as a service will help businesses reduce license costs with a pay-per-use model and standardising IT in the organisation, while scaling use of software can help align business growth.
       That can help businesses stay in touch with the public as well as stimulate internet payments.
       Kittipong Tameyapradit, Senior Executive Vice President at ToT Corpor-ation, said 3G services will enable a better quality of life, especially in distance learning and tele-healthcare in rural areas where Wi-Max and Fiber to the node technology is not suitable or incurs a higher cost of implementation.
       Meanwhile, Peerapol Chatanantavej,True Move's assistant director of 3G marketing, said there are many applications offering consumers a safer and more convenient way to connect wirelessly.
       For example, consumers can use a 3G camera home monitor with built-in 3G sim which can connect to live views and record movements at their home at any time. Or the 3G door phone, which can snap a visitor's picture and send it to the owner via MMS.
       "The door phone can initiate a VDO call to the homeowner if they're not at home," said Peerapol.
       He continued that consumers could also use 3G Wi-Fi routers to share small wireless groups instantly or use 3G Fem-tocell, which acts like a small home base station allowing users to connect to nearby wireless services with an ADSL broadband router.
       Pathom Indarodom, General Manager,AR Information & Publications, shared his view that 3G services in Thailand will help stimulate digital content business opportunities, especially in business applications such as push mail.
       He said wireless broadband will encourage more new services and a 5-10 percent increase in online advertising revenue - although this figure is still behind the global average increase of 20-30 percent.
       The company expects that within two years, 50 percent of notebooks and netbooks will be 3G-enabled, increasing to 70 percent within 5 years. Today, just 5 percent are 3G-ready.
       "Studies show that if 3G is made available in Thailand, it will help boost gross domestic product growth by around 0.3-1 percent," Pathom noted.

Magnificent seven

2009-11-08T06:03:00.000-08:00

       In the most important, most revered event since the invention of the brontosaurus trap,Microsoft shipped the most incredibly fabulous operating system ever made; the release of Windows 7 also spurred a new generation of personal computers of all sizes at prices well below last month's offers.The top reason Windows 7 does not suck: There is no registered website called Windows7Sucks.com
       Kindle e-book reader maker Amazon.com and new Nook e-book reader vendor Barnes and Noble got it on; B&N got great reviews for the "Kindle killer"Nook, with dual screens and touch controls so you can "turn" pages, plays MP3s and allows many non-B&N book formats, although not the Kindle one;Amazon then killed the US version of its Kindle in favour of the international one, reduced its price to $260(8,700 baht), same as the Nook; it's not yet clear what you can get in Thailand with a Nook, but you sure can't (yet) get much, relatively speaking, with a Kindle;but here's the biggest difference so far,which Amazon.com has ignored: the Nook lets you lend e-books to any other Nook owner, just as if they were paper books; the borrowed books expire on the borrower's Nook in two weeks.
       Phone maker Nokia of Finland announced it is suing iPhone maker Apple of America for being a copycat; lawyers said they figure Nokia can get at least one, probably two per cent (retail) for every iPhone sold by Steve "President for Life" Jobs and crew via the lawsuit,which sure beats working for it -$6 (200 baht) to $12(400 baht) on 30 million phones sold so far, works out to $400 million or 25 percent of the whole Apple empire profits during the last quarter;there were 10 patent thefts, the Finnish executives said, on everything from moving data to security and encryption.
       Nokia of Finland announced that it is one month behind on shipping its new flagship N900 phone, the first to run on Linux software; delay of the $750(25,000 baht) phone had absolutely no part in making Nokia so short that it had to sue Apple, slap yourself for such a thought.
       Tim Berners-Lee, who created the World Wide Web, said he had one regret:the double slash that follows the "http:"in standard web addresses; he estimated that 14.2 gazillion users have wasted 48.72 bazillion hours typing those two keystrokes, and he's sorry; of course there's no reason to ever type that, since your browser does it for you when you type "www.bangkokpost.com" but Tim needs to admit he made one error in his lifetime.
       The International Telecommunication Union of the United Nations, which doesn't sell any phones or services, announced that there should be a mobile phone charger that will work with any phone; now who would ever have thought of that, without a UN body to wind up a major study on the subject?;the GSM Association estimates that 51,000 tonnes of chargers are made each year in order to keep companies able to have their own unique ones.
       The Well, Doh Award of the Week was presented at arm's length to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development; the group's deputy secretary-general Petko Draganov said that developing countries will miss some of the stuff available on the Internet if they don't install more broadband infrastructure; a report that used your tax baht to compile said that quite a few people use mobile phones but companies are more likely to invest in countries with excellent broadband connections; no one ever had thought of this before, right?
       Sun Microsystems , as a result of the Oracle takeover, said it will allow 3,000 current workers never to bother coming to work again; Sun referred to the losses as "jobs," not people; now the fourth largest server maker in the world, Sun said it lost $2.2 billion in its last fiscal year; European regulators are holding up approval of the Oracle purchase in the hope of getting some money in exchange for not involving Oracle in court cases.
       The multi-gazillionaire and very annoying investor Carl Icahn resigned from the board at Yahoo ; he spun it as a vote of confidence, saying current directors are taking the formerly threatened company seriously; Yahoo reported increased profits but smaller revenues in the third quarter.
       The US House of Representatives voted to censure Vietnam for jailing bloggers; the non-binding resolution sponsored by southern California congresswoman Loretta Sanchez said the Internet is "a crucial tool for the citizens of Vietnam to be able to exercise their freedom of expression and association;"Hanoi has recently jailed at least nine activists for up to six years apiece for holding pro-democracy banners. Iran jailed blogger Hossein "Hoder" Derakshan for 10 months - in solitary confinement.

MAXIS TO RELIST IN SE ASIA'S BIGGEST IPO

2009-11-08T06:02:00.000-08:00

       Maxis, Malaysi's top mobile operator, is tipped to receive a warm welcome back to the bourse this month in an IPO worth around $3.43 billion (Bt114.8 billion), billed as the biggest in Southeast Asia's history.
       Maxis, controlled by reclusive Malaysian tycoon Anada Krishnan and Saudi Telecom, is launching the initial public offering (IPO) on Bursa Malasia two years after it was taken private and de-listed.
       It is offering 2.25 billion, or 30 per cent, of its shares at an indicative price of 5.20 ringgit which would raise 11.7 billion ringgit (Bt114.8 billion). Most of the shares will go to institutional investors.
       Nazir Razak, group chief executive of CIMB which is the principal adviser fot he listing exercise, said the IPO will be the biggest in Southeast Asian history.
       Parent company Maxis communications is expected to deploy the proceeds of the sale, slated for November 19, on funding expansion, and to reduce debt.
       The listing includes only Maxis's Malaysian mobile business and excludes its ventures in India and Indonesia which remain under Maxis Communications, the unlisted parent company.
       Alliance Research said Maxis remains the leading mobile operator in Malaysia in both the prepaid and post-paid segments with some 11.4 million subscriptions as at tne of the first half of 2009.
       Its post-paid segment holds a thumping 46.4 per cent of the market, but Alliance said the business had "limited growth prospects, without overseas operations".

CAT seeks 3G bid partners

2009-10-20T22:21:00.000-07:00

       Five regional mobile phone operators have shown interest in joining CAT Telecom to bid for a 3G mobile broadband licence from the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC).
       CAT Telecom president Jirayuth Roongsrithong did not name the operators but said they had overseas experience and could compete with the two local mobile market leaders and their financially strong foreign shareholders.
       True Corp, the third-ranked mobile operator, and some government officials have complained that the current 3G bid terms could favour top-ranked Advanced Info Service and DTAC, which have Temasek of Singapore and Telenor of Norway respectively as major foreign shareholders.
       Mr Jirayuth said CAT has yet to shortlist operators but would start talking in detail with them to be ready if the 3G auction is held in December as the NTC plans.
       The Asian operators believed 3G licences in Thailand would not be very expensive and the price would not deter them from bidding, he added.
       He said CAT was determined to win one of the four licences on offer."If we lose the bid, it may become a crisis for CAT in the future," he said.
       CAT and its state sibling, TOT Plc,rely on revenue-sharing payments from private operators under existing concessions. 3G services would not have the same concession structure.
       CAT currently has only two 10 MHz bandwidth slots to provide its CDMA mobile service and would need more to offer 3G and other more advanced technologies in the future, in his view.
       Mr Jirayuth said the state enterprise and its foreign partners should emerge as strong contenders since CAT has a CDMA network in 51 provinces and plans to buy out partner Hutchison to gain full control of the Hutch CDMA network in the 25 central provinces.
       The two parties have signed a memorandum of understanding and a deal should be concluded by the end of this year, he said.
       As well, CAT also owns the 800 MHz spectrum used by DTAC and 1800 MHz used by True Move.

CPB asked to protect mobile phone users

2009-10-15T00:33:00.000-07:00

       The Council of Telecommunication Consumers has lodged a complaint with the Consumer Protection Board, asking it to list mobile phone services as a controlled business.
       The council's chairman, Rerngchai Tansakul, yesterday asked the board to amend the 2000 CPB announcement on contracts to include mobile phone services on the list of businesses whose contracts are controlled by the CPB.
       Mr Rerngchai said the move was needed to protect pre-paid mobile phone users who account for about 90% of mobile phone users nationwide, or 58 million people.
       He also asked the CPB to set up a working panel to amend the announcement and to include members of his council on the team.
       He said his council had conducted a survey of mobile phone users which found that providers had been taking advantage of prepaid mobile phone users.
       The CPB could enact the CPB announcement against mobile phone service providers and launch civil and criminal lawsuits against them, Mr Rerngchai said.

Vietnam rings in 3G

2009-10-13T22:28:00.001-07:00

       Telecommunications company Vinaphone has launched its third generation mobile phone service in Vietnam's biggest cities with plans to extend it nationwide.
       Vinaphone's deputy director Ho Duc Thang says the service is currently available in 13 major cities and provinces and will be extended to the remaining 50 provinces over the next three years.
       Earlier this year, military-run Viettel,Vinaphone and MobiFone - which are both run by Vietnam Post & Telecommunications - and a consortium of EVN Telecom and Hanoi Telecom were selected to offer 3G.
       It's unclear when three others will offer their services.
       Mobile phones are increasingly popular in Vietnam, a fast-growing Southeast Asian nation of 86 million.

NORWEGIAN TREND - SPOTTER LEARNS A KEY MANAGEMENT LESSON IN EARLY MONTHS

2009-10-12T00:01:00.000-07:00

       "Forget everything you know about Norwegian management and listen carefully" was among the advice offered to DTAC's chief strategy officer, Roar Wiik Andreassen, by Sigve Brekke, chief executive officer of Telenor Asia and the charismatic former leader of DTAC (Total Access Communication), when Andreassen arrived in Bangkok two-and-a-half years ago.
       Still, Andreassen said he was very confused and felt like he was "doing business on the moon" during his initial months after shifting from Norway to Bangkok.
       Though he thought he had prepared himself for working in a new culture and had received tips from his bosses, it was not a smooth adjustment.
       "[It's the kind of thing] you have to experience by yourself," he said.
       Then, after six months, Andreassen said he sat himself down and "started talking to people", getting their feedback and adjusted his working style to suit the local context.
       "It's a very important lesson I have learnt. Taking your culture framework ... believing your culture and working style would work in Thailand: it doesn't," he said.
       Andreassen came to Bangkok to serve as a senior vice president for Telenor Asia.
       He formally assumed his current position as chief strategy officer for DTAC, Telenor's Thai subsidiary, in January, but he has been helping DTAC to prepare its third-generation (3G) network trial run since August.
       The chief strategy officer position was a new post created by DTAC, as was the strategy and business development division he heads. The new post and the new division were created because, after experiencing good growth every year since 2001, Thailand's mobile-phone market has matured with the penetration rate reaching 100 per cent this year, he said.
       "What do we do now ... with business changes, market is changing? We have succeed so far in 'voice' growth; what do we do with the 3G and other businesses including financial services, media businesses, Internet and broadband market, the new devices: should we buy some companies, should we cooperate ...?" said Andreassen, speaking of his main tasks.
       Andreassen said his assignment was to pinpoint a long-term direction for DTAC that will enable Thailand's second-largest cellular-phone network operator to keep growing its business in the next two to four years, while retaining its strength as a flexible organisation. He admitted his task was challenging and that some opportunities he had identi-fied might never materialise, but added that it was a rewarding mission to work with such fun stuff and new devices, and to look at future trends.
       Andreassen said the mobile Internet era was just beginning, and the potential for new mobile services to be offered over the Net and the 3G platform was incredibly vast.
       Every company, including Apple and Nokia and many other IT and telecom firms, now wants to be involved, he said.
       "It's easy to define the [mobile] market as matured, but I think we are only starting and the future will be about mobile Internet."
       On the other hand, Andreassen admitted that the emergence of "Internet terminals" like the iPhone and cheap Internet calling services like Skype were a threat for telecom operators, and said it was difficult to predict who would survive thse new trends.
       "[The] threat is coming closer and closer. But telecom operators will adjust or team up; they may take revenue sharing or partnership [with other companies]," he said.
       Positive attitude
       Andreassen agreed his task of spotting future trends and business opportunities required an optimistic outlook.
       "What makes me happy is not the numbers or technologies, but working with people ... being with friends, family, my children. Exercise, making jokes, laughter. I like laughing and making jokes at work," he said.
       While working very hard, being professional, taking responsibility and respecting one another were all vital, Andreassen said, he also believes that one should find a balance. So there's a lot of laughter and a lot of fun in the workplaces he runs.
       Compared to working in Scandinavia, Andreassen said working in Thailand required fewer formal meetings and a closer follow-up on details, to get the same results. As a foreign executive one should be aware of cultural differences, and remember that lacking language skills means you can't know everything going on at the company, and could easily misunderstand something, he said.
       Citing his own lessons learned during the first six months of working in Bangkok, Andreassen said he believes people can learn from their mistakes more than from their successes, and thus they should not be afraid of making mistakes.
       "Let people make mistakes, because you progress and you learn something. Celebrate your success and learn from your mistakes. Don't punish people who make mistakes," he said.
       Prior to joining Telenor Asia in Bangkok in early 2007, Andreassen was CEO of Telenor Real Estate, which had a turnover of 1.2 billion Norwegian kroner (Bt7 billion) and about 200 employees.
       He began his work with the Telenor Group in 2001 as its finance director overseeing extensive organisational changes to the group's finance and accounting functions.
       In 2004, he took the post of chief financial officer for Avinor Group, a company that operates 46 airports in Norway, before returning to take charge of Telenor Real Estate.
       Andreassen graduated with a master's degree in Business and Economics in 1995 from the Norwegian School of Management, BI Sandvika, and a BA in Business and Economics from Harstad University College.
       Before studying in Economics, he took a one-year course in philosophy studies at the University of Bergen in 1989.

TOT fixing pay phones

2009-10-11T02:10:00.000-07:00

       TOT Plc is spending 50 million baht to improve its pay telephones to accommodate new coins.
       The state enterprise expects to modify 40,000 telephones across the country by early next year and 200,000 by yearend next year.
       TOT president Varuth Suvakorn said the improvements became necessary after the Treasury Department minted new one-, two-, five- and 10-baht coins,changed the metal used in the one- and two-baht coins and changed the weight and density of the five-baht coin.
       The new coins were released in August,and some TOT pay phones were unable to accommodate them.
       The phone modifications are timeconsuming and cost 600 to 700 baht per phone, he said. Work is now under way and unmodified phones return new coins that are not recognised.
       Mr Varuth said that although revenues from coin-operated phones had declined steadily, TOT continued to maintain the quality of the service.
       TOT has about 200,000 public phones,with 30,000 of them card-operated.

ICT MINISTER WANTS REVIEW OF 3G LICENCE AUCTION

2009-10-02T21:40:00.000-07:00

       Information and Communications Technology Minister Ranongruk Suwanchawee said yesterday she would ask the government to tell the national telecom watchdog to review the licence and auction conditions of the 3G-2.1GHz licences.
       She cited concerns that the licensing would affect the revenues of TOT and CAT Telecom and would pave the way for foreign firms to gobble up the Thai telecom industry.
       The minister has already ordered TOT and CAT to work out the possible affects on their revenues because of the licensing and send a proposal to her on Monday before she approaches Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva on the matter.
       Ranongruk said that she had learned from watching TNN channel of True Visions that the 3G licence auction by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) would give a chance to foreign firms to fully enter the Thai market.
       The telecom law and Foreign Business Act each caps the foreign shareholding in Thai telecom operators at 49 per cent.
       She added that TOT and CAT both have the potential to develop 3G services.
       "We have to trust TOT. If we don't trust it, who will? Both TOT and CAT have contributed a great deal of revenue to the country. Why don't we give them a chance?" she said.
       The NTC has set December 8 as the tentative date to auction four licences to use the 2.1GHz spectrum to develop the 3G wireless broadband service.
       NTC chairman Choochart Phromprasid said he would apprise the premier on all matters on Monday. The NTC has invited the premier to give a speech on the role of national independent regulators in the country's development.
       Choochart said that TOT had once asked the NTC to delay the auction plan but in the watchdog's view, the country lagged behind other countries in the 3G-service development.
       He said that TOT and CAT were granted the joint ownership rights of the 1,900 MHz spectrum band - part of the 2.1GHz spectrum - since 2000 by the now defunct Frequency Allocation Panel. But they have not yet shown any progress in developing the service.
       CAT has just finished transferring its joint ownership rights to TOT and allowed it to solely own the 1,900 MHz spectrum for developing the 3G service. Choochart added that the auction conditions do not allow firms with 100-per-cent foreign shareholding to bid for the licences but the conditions comply with the telecom law and the Foreign Business Act.
       Ranongruk said she wondered why the auction prohibited state telecom agencies from bidding for the licences.
       However, TOT chairman of the board, Teravuti Boonyasopon, said that TOT does not want to enter the bid but wants to see the auction take place after the end of the private telecom concession terms.
       One 3G licence auction condition prohibits an owner of a 3G spectrum band from bidding for the licences. TOT owns the 1,900 MHz band, which is part of the 3G-2.1GHz spectrum.
       NTC deputy secretary-general Suranan Wongvithayakamjorn said CAT is likely to be qualified to bid for the licences.
       Earlier, the NTC was uncertain if CAT could bid for the licences, as the Finance Ministry owns 100 per cent shares in CAT and TOT, and TOT owns the 1,900 MHz.
       CAT chief executive officer Jirayuth Rungsrithong said that CAT is interested in bidding for the licences.
       Teravuti said TOT also wanted to see that those interested in providing the 3G service do so via the TOT's upcoming 3G networks only and on the mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) basis. An MVNO is a company without its own network but leases airtime of others to provide the cellular service.
       TOT is upgrading its existing 1,900 MHz network in Bangkok and Greater Bangkok to 3G technology and will roll out the new 3G network nationwide.
       Teravuti is concerned that once they get the 3G licences,. the telecom operators will move their existing subscribers from the state concessions to the 3G licences to save the huge regulatory cost. This will affect the revenue of TOT.
       Currently the mobile-phoen service concessions have contributed an average 20 per cent of their revenue as concession fees. The total annual 3G licences cost it expected to account for only 6 per cent of revenues.
       TOT owns the concession of Thailand's largest cellular operator Advanced Info Service, which has paid at least Bt10 billion of the concession fee a year to TOT.
       Meanwhile, True, the parent company of True Visions, strongly opposed the 3G licence auction during the 3G public hearing on Monday, arguing that the method favours big telecom operators over smaller ones. True also aruged that the telecom industry is a matter of national security and hence the NTC should not award 3G licences to foreign firms.

3G AUCTION MAY BE HELD ON DECEMBER 8

2009-10-02T21:37:00.000-07:00

       The national telecom regulator has set December 8 as the tentative date for the auction of four 3G-2.1GH licences, commissioner Sethaporn Cusripituck said yesterday.
       A source at the National Telecommunica-tions Commission said the NTC expected to finalise the range of the reserve price for each licence at between US$150 million and $200 million (Bt5 billion-Bt6.7 billion).
       The reserve price is the minimum amount the NTC expects to gain from each licence auction.
       The watchdog will hold a board meeting next Wednesday to finalise the details, including the auction date, reserve price and bid starting price.
       Sethaporn said the board would discuss whether it would reveal the reserve price, and whether the reserve price and the starting bid price should be the same.
       The meeting will also see the watchdog finalising the contingency plan in the event of the number of those qualified to bid for the four licences being the same as or lower than the actual number of licences.
       The NTC is concerned that if this were to be the case, there would be no genuine competition in the bidding.
       Sethaporn said that if this were to happen, the NTC might not inform the qualified bidders of the number of bidders they are contending with. It might also surprise them by putting up fewer than four licences in the auction, in order to promote competition.
       NTC secretary-general Suranan Wongvithayakamjorn said investors from India, Malaysia and Indonesia had asked the NTC for details of the auction, but he declined to specify their names.
       NTC member Sudharma Yoonaidharma said he was opposed to holding the 3G licence auction so soon, as the national regulator had yet to come up with much crucial information for potential bidders.
       He said that before the auction, the NTC should provide a comprehensive map of the details of all telecom networks in Thailand, so that those who are not current operators could clearly ascertain where they could roll out networks should they be awarded a licence.
       He added that the NTC auction plan seemed to favour incumbent operators. Moreover, it seems the NTC's granting of the 3G licences has been publicly perceived as a way for the private telecom concession |holders to move customers from the concessions to the 3G licences in order to reduce their costs.
       The private mobile-phone concession holders have to pay an average of 20 per cent of their revenue to one of the state concession owners, TOT and CAT Telecom. A 3G licence, however, is expected to cost them 6 per cent of their revenue per year.
       Sudharma said he wanted to see Thai companies having a chance to win or share in the benefits from the 3G licences. He stressed that he did not mean True Corp, as True is a giant Thai telecom operator, but rather the smaller domestic companies.
       In the NTC's public hearing on 3G licence and auction conditions this past Monday, True strongly opposed many points, including licences being granted via the auction process, citing that the method favoured large companies over smaller operators.
       Senator Anan Woratitipong yesterday said the 3G licence auction would stimulate economic growth, given that it would lead to huge investment by bid winners in terms of licence payment and then network roll-out, which would create jobs.
       Anan does not expect the auction bidding to rise too high.
       The NTC, which marked its fifth anniversary yesterday, has invited Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to give a speech on Monday on the role of the independent regulator in the country's development.
       Meanwhile, the watchdog returns money to the state coffers every year after deducting expenses from the regulatory fees it collects.
       NTC deputy-secretary-general Takorn Tantansit said it had returned Bt158 million in the first year of establishment, Bt839 million in the second year, Bt795 million in the third and Bt2.6 billion last year.
       It is expected to return Bt1.3 billion to the government this year.

Bharti and MTN scrap merger talks

2009-10-02T21:35:00.000-07:00

       India's top mobile company Bharti Airtel on Wednesday called off merger talks with South Africa's MTN Group aimed at creating an emerging market powerhouse, blaming South Africa's political leaders.
       The South African government "has expressed its inability to accept it (the proposed deal) in the current form" and "in view of this, both companies have taken the decision to disengage from discussion," Bharti said in a statement.
       The collapse of the politically sensitive talks marked the second time the two companies had failed to forge an alliance.They called off similar talks in May 2008.
       A merger would have created the world's third-largest mobile operator by subscribers that would have dominated two of the globe's fastest-growing emerging markets - India and Africa.
       Bharti's statement came hours before the expiry of the deadline for conclusion of the exclusive merger discussions,which had already been extended twice.
       The South African government rejected Bharti's allegation it had scuppered the estimated $24-billion deal, saying the move to scrap the talks had been a joint decision by MTN and Bharti.
       MTN said separately that both companies had been unable to strike a deal "within the economic, legal and regulatory framework within which both companies operate."
       It hailed the "positive and constructive" nature of the talks and the "cooperation and supportive approach" of the South African and Indian governments.
       Bharti, which wants to be a global telecoms giant, hung up on talks with MTN in May 2008 after the South African firm proposed an ownership structure that the Indian company said would have made it "a subsidiary of MTN."
       This time, however, Bharti said, the proposed deal recognised both companies as "national champions" and its structure took into account "their leadership in their respective geographies to ensure continuity of business."
       Under the proposed deal, Bharti would have been the biggest shareholder in the new group, taking a 49% stake in MTN while MTN shareholders would have had a 36% stake in Bharti.
       The Indian company said it would "continue to explore international expansion opportunities," without elaborating.
       "Bharti needs to go abroad because it's already the top Indian player," said an industry analyst, who asked not to be named.

Sound familiar?

2009-09-25T06:54:00.000-07:00

       Your TOT crossed its heart and hoped to die if it fails to have actual third-generation mobile phone service in a little corner of Bangkok before New Year's Eve; Vichien Narkseenuan, the firm's senior executive president for vice, said he expects to sign a deal Real Soon Now with a socalled mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) that will carry the TOT service,although no names, please; Mr Vichien promised "about" 500,000 numbers would be available; real yuppiephone networks scoffed at the TOT offer to let them in on the deal, because they fear that if they rent a network now, the National Telecommunications Commission won't let them bid for a licence to run their own 3G services.
       Vichien Narkseenuan, the senior executive president of vice for your TOT ,said that the state monopoly plans to open a third-generation (3G) phone service with 100,000 numbers, and serving the entire country; TOT has no intention of building its own base stations,though, and will rent them from real phone companies; Mr Vichien forgot to mention when this nationwide 3G service might start for the lucky 100,000.
       The National Telecommunications Commission announced it will open public hearings on third generation phones next Monday; Prasert Aphipunya, secretary in charge of vice for the NTC, said you should bring along a large truck load of money if you want to start the bidding for licences, say,oh, somewhere around 10 billion-witha-"b" baht; after next weeks' hearing,there will be a notice in the Royal Gazette ,and actual bidding for four (and only four) available licences may open as early as December; rules on all of this should be up on the NTC's website by now at www.ntc.co.th.
       For the third time in a row, the strug-gling TT&T company won a multibillion-baht lawsuit against your TOT and for the third time in a row your TOT told them to pound sand; this time,an agree-upon arbitrator decided that TOT owed the up-country phone provider 2.3 billion baht in misguided revenue sharing for long distance calls;but TOT president Varut Suvakorn rejected the arbitration and told TT&T,"See ya in court, boys"; in case the Administrative Court rules against TOT yet again, Mr Varut said he was pretty sure the state firm didn't have that kind of money to pay off anyhow; TT&T explained that lawsuit number four is about to be filed.
       No 2 yuppiephone firm DTAC of Norway opened its new headquarters in new Chamchuri Square , bragging that it spent one billion baht on the 19-floor (!) digs; all 3,200 DTAC employees relocated from the Chai Building to the new location at the Sam Yan intersection,overlooking Chulalongkorn University;CEO Tore Johnsen signed a 10-year lease for the 61,160-square-metre office,which includes the firm's main call centre; Mr Johnsen said new staff will work harder to pay the extra rent money; the kicker is that DTAC is asking the following price for the Chai Building one billion baht; Mr Johnsen said that DTAC was pressing ahead aggressively on its 3G trials and so on and etc and zzzzzzz.
       Energy Minister Wannarat Channukul, apparently unaware that you can't spell "Thaksin" without "hub", said that Asean should become the energy exporting hub of the world; no, really,his reasoning is that Southeast Asia has so much food that it can make biofuels galore and sell it to the world at Arabesque profits; not only does Southeast Asia (sic) have a lot of extra food to feed the world's cars, it's, well, better "higher yields and more commercially viable for biofuel than corn and beetroot" from the US and Europe; to coin a phrase, in the klongs there are fish and in the fields there are biofuels.
       Energy Minister Wannarat Channukul called in state firms and phuyai of the private sector for a heart-to-heart joint statement that everyone would cooperate on saving energy; this year's spin is that the programme will "save"100 billion baht, and Mr Wannarat got away unchallenged with a claim that a similar project last year saved 30 billion baht; the deal is that the Federation of Thai Industries (FTI) and the Thai Chamber of Commerce (TCC) and so on - 30,000 firms altogether - will work on conservation, purchase green technology and so on, and in return they will get some tax breaks and subsidies on loans taken through the energy services company fund (Esco); the minister is looking for one billion baht to fund Esco this year.

A piece of the action

2009-09-25T06:52:00.000-07:00

       And the crowd went wild as Steve "President for Life" Jobs of Apple Computer came out on the stage to emcee the now-annual September music sales pitch, with loads of new stuff; in the biggest news, the iPod Nano got a video camera and FM radio, and Steve showed off the new iTunes Ver 9 management software; he also showed off the iPhone OS 3.1, available for download, which actually recommends apps you might like, has better synching for music and video, and lets you save video from email attachments into your playlist, aka Camera Roll.
       Apple cut the prices of its old iPod models just hours ahead of announcing new iPod models; the price of the 32-gigabyte iPod Touch was cut $120 to $279, or 9,500 baht in real money; a 120-gig iPod Classic now costs $229, a $20 cut by the generous folks who run Apple. Palm introduced a smaller,cheaper smartphone than the successful Pre; the Pixi, as it's called, is aimed at younger users; it's slimmer, has a smaller screen, but features a Qwerty keyboard,8GB of memory and a two-megapixel camera.
       US President Barack Obama, in a controversial school-time speech to most US children, advised them to be careful about what they put on Facebook and other social networks;"Whatever you do, it will be pulled up again later somewhere in your life," he warned.
       First Solar of America signed a contract with the Chinese government to build the world's largest solar power plant in Inner Mongolia; assuming it is built, the Ordos City plant will push out 2,000 megawatts of electricity,around four times the size of the projects being built by the US Army in the Mojave Desert and by First Solar in California;the China project isn't near anything much; Ordos City is a coal-producing,eight-year-old, planned low-carbon development with about 1.5 million residents, roughly 800km west of Beijing.
       Networking firm Huawei of China,which has suffered a scandal or two in its Thailand work, was stung to the quick by mean stories in the Australian media that it might be tied to the Chinese espionage services; Guo Fulin, managing director of Huawei in Australia, was hurt by the insensitive stories that his company was under investigation by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation; Huawei is a public-owned company, he said, and it is unthinkable that any government agency would be using Huawei to conduct spying.
       The government of Cuba took a huge security gamble, and authorised post offices to provide Internet access to the public - just in case the Cuban government ever authorises the public to use the Internet at some point in the future; the only public access currently allowed is to an inside-Cuba intranet for email, provided by post offices at a cost of the equivalent of 55 baht an hour, in a country where the average wage is 680 baht a month.
       Japan fired an unmanned cargo craft into orbit; the 16.5-tonne unmanned H-II Transfer Vehicle (HTV) is on a mission to re-supply the space station;it will stay up there to continue ferrying stuff to the US shuttle fleet next year.
       Prime Minister Gordon Brown publicly apologised for the way that people treated World War Two code-breaker and extraordinary computer geek Alan Turing for being gay; Turing was prosecuted for homosexual conduct in 1952,and a mere two years later, he committed suicide;"I am pleased to have the chance how deeply sorry I and we all are," said Mr Brown.
       Google , which plans to give away grazillions of books in order to get the (commercial) goods on its customers,offered to let all its opponents have a piece of the action;Amazon.com , which wants to sell grazillions of books to make tonnes of money directly, scoffed.Rupert Murdoch, the American media mogul, began collecting money at the tollgate to his news sites, in an interesting experiment to see if people will actually pay for news on the Net.
       IBM, Microsoft, Oracle Corp and Google all responded to a plaintive "Help" from the Newspaper Association of America on how to get money from customers who don't want to pay for news; Randy Bennett, who is the senior president for vice in newspapers, said he's looking over 11 different proposals on how to squeeze money out of you;Google, to no one's surprise, offered to put all newspapers behind one vast,semi-expensive firewall, because that would be so convenient for everyone to just pay one company one time, and then Google would spread the money around; sure, that ought to work.
       South African technology firm Unlimited IT dispatched Winston, a pigeon,from its office in Pietermaritzburg, with some data for its main hub in Durban strapped to the bird's leg; it took Winston one hour and eight minutes to fly the data card; meanwhile, Unlimited IT tried to send the same data via the speedchallenged Internet connections provided by leading Internet Telkom , and that download was four percent finished by the time Winston arrived; so it's not only countries that start with "T" that have Internet problems.
       T-Mobile of Germany and Orange of France merged their yuppiephone operations in Britain, creating a new $13.5 billion company with 28.4 mobile phone customers; the Deutsche Telekom-France Telecom venture will be the biggest provider in the UK, with a 37 percent market share, larger than O2 of Telefonica.

Jasmine orders TT&T to cede control of Maxnet after ruling

2009-09-22T20:07:00.001-07:00

       Jasmine International Plc has given TT&T Plc an ultimatum to stop operating a broadband internet service through an affiliate, claiming the business unit is majority owned by Jasmine.
       The parent of the provincial fixedline telephone and internet provider said it was asserting its right to take over Triple T Broadband, based on the fact that it owns a 91% stake in the internet provider.
       The assertion came in a letter to TT&T after the Central Bankruptcy Court approved the appointment of P Planner to prepare the debt rehabilitation plan for TT&T, according to a TT&T shareholder.
       The executive said TT&T had threatened to cancel broadband bill payment services at its nationwide customer service centres for Triple T if Jasmine takes over the business. In addition, TT&T threatened to sue Jasmine if the latter cuts off its copper cable or optical-fibre network without permission.
       In the letter, Jasmine ordered TT&T Subscriber Service, another subsidiary of TT&T, to stop managing the MaxNet broadband service as it is causing confusion among customers. Jasmine said it neither hired nor requested TT&T Subscriber to run the business.
       Triple T Broadband has not run the business in compliance with Jasmine's policies and disagreed with its manage-ment plan, which is causing severe damage to the broadband unit, Jasmine said.
       Also, as TT&T is entering into rehabilitation, it urgently needs to put most of its efforts into restructuring debt, creating a new business plan and restructuring the organisation, Jasmine said."We want TT&T to stop running the broadband management and revenue collection,and transfer customers from its network."
       TT&T is planning to restructure 21 billion baht in debt. Of all, 18 billion baht consists of long-term obligations of five to 10 years, and the remaining 3 billion represent supplier credits. Of that amount,45% of the debts are owed to a dozen local financial institutions, with the rest to foreign creditors.
       Jasmine also said that TT&T could not ban customers from paying bills at its facilities because the company had informed the Revenue Department that Triple T was allowed to legally use the centres for bill services.
       "We have the right to fully control the broadband unit and TT&T has no right to intervene," the letter said, adding that TT&T held only a 9% stake in Triple T Broadband.
       Triple T, with 10 million baht in registered capital, previously was wholly owned by TT&T. But TT&T failed to inject money into the company when it needed to raise its capital to 110 million baht, resulting in Jasmine becoming the major shareholder.

Ericsson aims to serve local 3G operators

2009-09-20T20:51:00.001-07:00

       Ericsson is building its local professional services to grab emerging opportunities from the development of a local 3G mobile phone service.
       The Swedish telecom equipment manufacturer expects to see substantial growth in its local professional services next year. It hopes the new service will create a long-term revenue stream for the company over the next few years.
       The value of the professional services market exceeds the amount that needs to be invested over the next few years to develop a 3G network, said Peter Borjesson, vice-president of the network services division at Ericsson Thailand.
       The three major mobile-phone service providers - AIS, DTAC and True Move - plan to invest a combined 100 billion baht to set up local 3G networks.
       After establishing a strong footprint in the US and Europe, Ericsson is stepping up efforts in Thailand to bundle its professional services with sales of its 3G network equipment to position itself as a end-to-end 3G service supplier.
       The professional services unit covers management services, network deployment, systems integration and consulting.The company commands slightly more than 10% of the global professional services market. The professional services unit contributed 38% of total sales revenue last year. "The total number of subscribers in our managed operations is now 350 million, representing about 25% of total mobile phone users globally," said Mr Borjesson.
       "Given our competitive scale and skills, plus the local business presence, we are now ready to promote our services by working in partnership with network operators."
       More complex network architecture and the increasing trend for operators to outsource IT services, Mr Borjesson said the company would focus on its core businesses and trying to reduce costs for clients.
       Chinese firms are aggressively promoting their 3G network technology but this does not mean the business opportunity has closed for Ericsson, he said.
       Ericsson can draw strength from its global brand presence while smaller operators have yet to establish themselves. Ericsson won the first-ever agreement for a commercial end-to-end 3G system from Thai Mobile for a nationwide mobile network integrating GSM and 3G.

Telco buys cable-TV operator

2009-09-16T22:20:00.000-07:00

       Taiwan Mobile Co, the country's second-largest phone carrier, agreed yesterday to buy cable television operator Kbro Co from Carlyle Group for NT$32.8 billion (US$1 billion) in stock and cash to become the market leader.
       "Carlyle will get 589 million shares in Taiwan Mobile and NT$440 million cash," Harvey Chang, president of the Taipei-based operator, said.
       "Carlyle will own 15.5% of Taiwan Mobile, making it the second-largest shareholder," the two companies said in separate statements.
       Chang seeks to use Taiwan Mobiles cable television business, its fastestgrowing division, to boost revenue from so-called convergence services that combine phone, Internet and television. The transaction will raise its share of the cable television market from 6.6% to 32%, with almost 1.6 million customers,making it the industry's largest provider.
       "The deal makes strategic sense as it gives them better economies of scale,"said Vivek Couto, executive director of Hong Kong-based Media Partners Asia Ltd."The growth in cable TV will come from the switch to digital TV and broadband Internet, where they can boost revenue per user."
       Couto estimated the combined company would surpass China Network Systems Inc, controlled by MBK Partners Ltd, and Taiwan Broadband Communications, owned by Macquarie Media Group, by number of subscribers.
       "The transaction is based on a mutually agreed price of NT$55 apiece for Taiwan Mobile stock," the carrier's spokeswoman Rosie Yu told Bloomberg News, without providing further details.
       Revenue at Taiwan Mobiles cable TV and broadband Internet division climbed 22% in the second quarter from a year earlier to NT$1.34 billion, the only one of its three operating divisions to record sales growth, according to a company presentation.
       Consolidated revenue for the company dropped 1% to NT$17.4 billion during the period, according to the presentation.
       "The most significant part of this transaction on the long-term business implication is we have acquired direct access to more than a million households in the urban areas," Chang said."That will provide us with a very substantial platform to provide the convergence services."
       Carlyle, the Washington-based private equity firm, bought a majority stake in Kbro in 2006.
       The cash payment would be made from Taiwan Mobiles existing holdings while the company may seek to refinance approximately NT$24 billion in debt it will assume as part of the transaction,spokeswoman Josephine Juan told Bloomberg News.
       "The shares will be issued out of Taiwan Mobiles existing treasury shareholding," she said.
       "Taiwan Mobile may sell corporate bonds or sign a syndicated loan as it looks to reduce the interest burden on the debt it will assume," Juan said.
       "Taiwan Mobile expects to close the deal within nine months after getting shareholder and regulatory approval,"she said.

AIS will co-operate on 3G resources with TOT

2009-09-16T22:19:00.000-07:00

       Advanced Info Service says it welcomes TOT Plc's decision to share its resources in providing third-generation or 3G mobile phone services and expects its revenues from 3G to rise 5-10%.
       AIS chief executive Wichien Mektrakarn said the 3G services, operated by its subsidiary Advance Wireless Network (AWN), would help raise its revenue by at least 5-10%. The business is much more lucrative than voice services in which it has to share 30% of postpaid revenue and 20% of prepaid revenue with TOT.
       AIS set up AWN to apply for a 3G licence on the 2.1 Gigahertz spectrum.
       As a concessionaire of TOT, AIS is willing to share its resources and ready to co-operate with the state telecom enterprise but more details need to be discussed.
       For instance, Mr Wichien said that in most cases AIS could allow TOT to share its resources and space rents at base stations. But for some stations where the transmission capacities are full, AIS could not allow TOT to share the resources, he said.
       Meanwhile, TOT board spokesman Ratian Srimangkol said the TOT board would not worry about a dwindling revenue share from AIS if the mobile-phone operator migrated its existing 28 million customers to its subsidiary AWN through attractive promotions. This was because TOT strongly believes that not all of AIS's customers need data services and many would be reluctant to pay more for 3G services.
       They would still adhere to the 2.5G service provided by AIS which is operated under the concession from TOT.
       He also said TOT's scheduled introduction of 3G services would be moved forward to Dec 2 from Dec 5, with the first phase covering Bangkok and having 500 base stations for 550,000 numbers.
       Four telecom operators have shown interest in being TOT's mobile virtual network operators.
       Mr Ratian said TOT was currently in talks as well with DTAC and True Move to share resources for 3G services.
       At the same time, National Telecommunications Commission chairman Gen Choochart Promprasit said a public hearing for 3G licensing regulations and auctions would be held on Sept 28.

CAT gauges Hutch value

2009-09-15T19:17:00.000-07:00

       CAT Telecom says it will hire a financial consultant this week to assess the value of the Hutchison CDMA mobile network covering 25 central provinces before concluding a takeover deal within 60 days.
       Krisada Kaweeyarn, executive chairman of the CAT board, said the takeover would allow the state telecom enterprise to integrate marketing and apply a singlenetwork strategy also in its own CDMA network covering the other 51 provinces.
       Hong Kong-based Hutchison has invested 40 billion baht in the Hutch CDMA network and operates it under a subsidiary named BFKT.
       The network was leased to CAT to provide service. Hutchison CAT Wireless Multimedia, a joint venture held 26%by CAT and 74% by Hutchison, is the marketing arm of the service. The service has only 900,000 customers in a market of 65 million, as CDMA has struggled to compete with the GSM mobile standard.
       Mr Krisada said that a buyout proposal had been talked about for two years.
       CAT's provincial CDMA network has a capacity of 3 million numbers but only 300,000 users.
       The buyout will be among the challenges for CAT president, Jirayuth Roongsrithong, whose appointment was endorsed on Sept 9 by the Finance Ministry. His performance will be evaluated every six months.

TRUE SEEKS CHANGE IN 3G AUCTION RULES

2009-09-13T23:10:00.000-07:00

       CEO calls for level playing field for local and foreign operators
       True Corp chief executive officer Supachai Chearavanont has called for a review of some conditions of the auction of 2.1GHz-3G spectrum licences to create a level playing field for Thai and foreign telecom operators.
       One condition set by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) requires bid-winners to pay for the licences in full within 14 days of the auction.
       True is the parent of True Move, the only cellular operator without a foreign strategic partner.
       Advanced Info Service has teamed up with Singapore Telecom, while Norwegian telecom giant Telenor is partnering Total Access Communication.
       The NTC, which intends to auction four of the licences in December, will hold a public hearing on the auction guidelines on Sept 28. NTC chairman Choochart Phromprasid said late last week that some auction conditions could be changed after the hearing to lessen the burden on bidders.
       True simply cannot compete with the foreign operators in terms of funding, Supachai said.
       "Do you want us to be knocked out? I'll demand at the public hearing that some auction conditions be amended, and I'll fight until I'm knocked out," a laughing Supachai said.
       If the bid-winners have to spend a great deal to win the licences, they are likely to pass the burden on to customers, who will ultimately be the ones who suffer, he said.
       Aside from having had to spend considerable sums to develop the 3G network and service, the bid-winners will also have to set aside funds to keep up as the network evolves to incorporate 4G technology and beyond, Supachai said.
       A telecom industry source said it appears that True has no choice but to seek a partner in order to raise the necessary funds to bid for a 3G licence and develop the service.
       The cost of rolling out a 3G network has been estimated at about Bt20 billion a year for the first three years.
       True is in the process of deciding whether to bid for the licence first and seek a strategic partner later, or do it the other way round, Supachai said.
       The firm has reportedly been approached by several foreign telecom operators about entering into a strategic partnership.
       Agricultural conglomerate Charoen Pokphand Group owns about 58 per cent of True.
       The telecom operator is keen to bid for |the 15 MHz-bandwidth licence, Supachai said.
       The NTC will auction off four 3G licences; one with a bandwidth of 15 MHz and three with 10 MHz bandwidths.
       In a separate development, TOT spokesman Rathien Srimongkol said late last week that the firm's 3G network would be up and running before the NTC completes its auction process.
       TOT is upgrading its 1,900 MHz cellular network in greater Bangkok to incorporate 3G technology. The upgrade is scheduled to be finished in early December.
       TOT will also spend about Bt20 billion to roll out a new 3G network nationwide for lease to a telecom operator, which will provide retail 3G services. The project is awaiting Cabinet approval.
       The NTC has barred TOT from bidding for a 3G licence, as it has its own 1,900 MHz spectrum band, which is part of the 2.1 GHz spectrum.
       The issue of whether CAT Telecom can enter the bidding has yet to be resolved. The Finance Ministry owns 100 percent of both CAT and TOT, while TOT owns the 1,900 MHz spectrum.

Hutchison selling network to CAT

2009-09-12T18:56:00.000-07:00

       CAT Telecom is expected to wrap up negotiations to buy the Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) 2000 1-x cellular network in 25 provinces from Hong Kong telecom giant Hutchison Telecom in December.

       CAT's chairman of the executive committee, Krisda Kaweeyarn, said yesterday that the Hong Kong telecom informed CAT two weeks ago its agreement to sell the network to CAT.
       In the next step CAT will appoint a financial adviser to conduct due diligence in the transaction while asking Hutchison Telecom to sign the network sales memorandum of understanding with CAT.
       "After the MoU, we'll talk with Hutchison Telecom on more details of the network purchase. We expect to conclude the deal in December," he added.
       CAT operates its CDMA network in 51 provinces, while Hutchison-CAT Wireless Multimedia provides the cellular service on the separate CDMA network in 25 provinces under the Hutch brand and under CAT's service-marketing agreement.
       Hutchison-CAT, the join venture of CAT and Hutchison Telecom, has leased the CDMA network in 25 provinces from BFKT, wholly owned subsidiary of Hutchison Telecom, to provide the cellular service. CAT wants to merge the two separate CDMA networks to enhance the service offering.
       Krisda said that after the complete transaction, CAT would terminate the BFKT network-leasing agreement and Hutchison-CAT service marketing agreement. Then CAT will seek a partner to jointly provide the service on the merged network.
       He said that telecom operators in the US, China, South Korea and Japan have shown interest in being CAT's partner in the matter, given that they have provided the CDMA service in their countries as well.
       In a related matter, the CAT board directors will convene on Wednesday to officially appoint Jirayuth Rungsrithong as the state agency's new president.

Bangkok ready for 3G trial

2009-09-08T22:35:00.000-07:00

       After years of waiting, Thailand's number two mobile operator DTAC has finally launched its 3G service on a limited trial basis in Bangkok on the 850 MHz frequency.But behind the cheers and promise of a revolution in broadband access, the future of 3G - and indeed 4G - remains as cloudy today as it ever was.
       Speaking at the pseudo-military styled launch, DTAC CEO Tore Johnsen spoke of the advent of 3G in Thailand as a revolution in broadband Internet access.Broadband penetration in Thailand reaches only 2 percent of the population,with sixteen million users. The world average is 10 percent. Closer to home,comparable markets such as Vietnam and Malaysia have double and four times Thailand's penetration, respectively.
       The situation is the way it is because 75 percent of people in Thailand do not have access to a fixed line and therefore have missed out on the first phase of broadband through ADSL (asynchronous digital subscriber line). Furthermore, half of Thailand's seven to eight million phone lines are concentrated in Bangkok.
       On the other hand, Thailand has virtually 100 percent mobile penetration and DTAC believes that mobile will be the way forward for Internet access.HSPA (high speed packet access) 3G has the potential to provide true broadband access to everyone wherever,whenever and on whatever size screen is needed.
       DTAC Chief Strategy Officer Roar Wiik Andreassen explained that the first phase of the non-commercial trial, and he did stress that it was a free, noncommercial trial, consisting of 18 base stations in Bangkok starting around the Sam Yan area.
       DTAC maintains its earlier statement that there is no need for technical trials of 3G given that it is a very mature and stable technology. Rather, these trials were aimed at better understanding the usage patterns and expectations of Thai consumers.2,000 volunteers were selected from over 10,000 applicants consisting of teens, young adults, working professionals to test their user experience gather feedback for the future commercial 850 MHz and 2100 MHz 3G launches.
       The focus at this time is very much the big screen (the notebook, as opposed to a handheld smartphone) and USB modem stick.
       850 MHz 3G does suffer from a lack of handsets in the local market with most phone manufacturers choosing to import European 900/2100 MHz 3G phones rather than the mainly Australian 850/2100 handsets. Andreassen said he was in talks with handset manufacturers,including, but not limited to, Nokia, to provide more 850/2100 phones in the market.
       "Today, the Apple iPhone and Blackberry Bold are both 850/2100 so there are 850-ready handsets, but we are not happy with the current 850 situation and we would like to encourage more 850/2100," he said.
       More generally across Asia, it is still very much open as to whether 850/2100 or 900/2100 is more important to handset makers. In Europe, many telcos are eager to refarm GSM 900 for HSPA, as it provides much better long-range coverage and penetration than 2100.
       The network is an HSDPA (downlink)and HSUPA (uplink) network with a theoretical maximum downlink speed of 7.2 MBPS. Users can expect 500 KBPS during peak times and around 1 to 1.5 MBPS typical speeds off-peak.
       For the test phase, no particular Inter-net technology will be blocked as this is very much about learning about what users use mobile broadband for.
       While some mobile operators in the west have a strong aversion to Skype and all forms of Voice over IP, peer-topeer file transfers and and video streaming, Andreassen said that in general,blocking something only makes the customer angry and it is better to manage usage probably through capped usage quotas and reduced speeds once the cap is reached, rather than blocking something outright.
       Pricing has also yet to be decided.The only thing he said is that it would be a simple, flexible pricing plan, probably based on time rather than on data throughput.
       Andreassen said that DTAC is 100 percent focused on the big screen (notebook) for the period of the trial as the main market is broadband in a country with limited fixed line penetration. In the future, it will come to the small screen (handheld) and DTAC will reconsider its position on 3G there later.
       "I think the picture will become blurry with the new Nokia [N900 tablet]. It will be more about where you use it,and for what kind of content," he added.
       DTAC has two 5 MHz blocks in the 8503G spectrum left over from its old analogue 1G days, though there has been a lot of heated discussion in the past as to whether it can be simply upgraded to 3G or whether doing so constitutes a new contract.
       This was referred to what is called the Section 22 committee, referring to the clause in the contract with the then Communications Authority of Thailand as concession holder that shall decide whether 850 MHz 3G is an upgrade or a new network entirely. If it is deemed a new network, it would not be allowed under the existing agreement.
       Earlier this year, DTAC CEO Tore Johnsen expressed his frustration with CAT for allowing True to use what DTAC considered to be its 1G frequency for its 3G trials and also for CAT throwing the matter to the Section 22 committee,as AIS did not face the same degree of red tape from its concession holder,TOT.
       So what happened in the past six months that led to today's launch? Andreassen was not eager to talk about the legal and regulatory mess and chose his answer carefully.
       "We decided to discuss with CAT and go into cooperation that allowed us to launch 850, non-commercially.When it comes to the future, a commercial launch is still pending with the regulator and section 22 for both ourselves and TrueMove," he said.
       So is he happy with TrueMove's use of what is supposedly DTAC's frequency and pseudo commercial trials?"I'd rather talk about what we are doing today," he said.
       Later, he did say that the network was using only one of its two 5 MHz channels and that the other could be turned at any time, thereby implying that the 2.5 MHz frequency overlap with TrueMove was somehow resolved.
       Asked how much existing equipment can be used for the new networks legally and technically, the CSO explained that for the new trial project, around 80 percent of the Huawei supplied HSPA 850 equipment could be reused for a 2100 MHz 3G rollout if a license was granted.
       However, because of the legal uncertainty around the section 22 committee, none of the existing 1800 2G infrastructure was being used for the 850 MHz trial and hence for all intents and purposes, the 8503G trial is a totally separate network.
       So what of the future? When can we expect commercial 3G in Thailand? Andreassen said that the regulator (National Telecommunication Commission) still has not finalised the conditions of the 3G auction yet. DTAC would of course want to participate in the auction and was intending to bid for 10 MHz of frequency (two channels). However,there are still too many variables unanswered, such as access to 3G assets and roll-out requirements to put a value on the different licences.
       And what of 4G LTE (Long Term Evol-ution)? Many countries have now started their 4G LTE tests with many commercial roll-outs expected as soon as next year,Andreassen did say he hoped the NTC would issue technology neutral licences rather than a licence tied to 3G technology. By simply managing spectrum,a 4G upgrade would be relatively painless, but again, the regulator has not yet indicated how this will for the licences to be bid on.
       "We expect 2.1 3G licences to be issued this year, after which we can expect a commercial launch in six to nine months.
       "When it comes to 850 it is still very hard and in meetings and discussions.I really don't know," he said.

TT&T wins arbitration case against TOT

2009-09-07T20:43:00.000-07:00

       TT&T won a third arbitration case over TOT Plc involving 2.3 billion baht concerning a revenue-sharing dispute.
       The victory was reported to the Stock Exchange of Thailand yesterday.
       But TOT plans to lodge an appeal with the Administrative Court over the arbitration court's ruling that it pay 2.3 billion to provincial fixed line operator TT&T over a revenue-sharing dispute seven years ago.
       TOT president Varut Suvakorn said TOT would protect its right to appeal,which means the case might take years before a final verdict is reached.
       TT&T won two earlier arbitration cases, the first involving 23 billion baht in compensation.
       Mr Varut said if a final ruling by the Administrative Court favoured TT&T,then TOT would comply. But he added he was sure TOT did not have the cash to pay such an amount.
       A shareholder of TT&T said the latest case filed by TT&T related to unfair revenue collection by TOT for long-distance call service. He added if TOT appeals the process might take as long as 10 years. But he was optimistic that although the case was far from over, its third consecutive victory should give TT&T more bargaining power in other disputes.TT&T filed four cases against TOT.
       In the first case TT&T filed against TOT, it demanded 23 billion baht in compensation after TOT allowed mobilephone operators to connect to its provincial network and collected 200 baht per month per number from each mobile phone operator.
       TT&T shares rose 4 satang to close at 71 satang in trade yesterday worth 52.9 million baht.

Serving the nation

2009-09-03T23:10:00.000-07:00

       Your CAT board of directors gave an ultimatum to the underwhelming team in charge of the CDMA yuppiephone service available and widely ignored in 51 provinces, and currently along with Hutch ranked as No 4 in the nation: Give us 500,000 customers by the end of the year, or you will be revamped; board spokesman Krisada Kaweeyarn refused todefine "revamped," but it can't be good; the CAT board noted that the managers are adding about 5,000 users a month to the claimed 350,000 subscribers, when the three leading services are gaining that many subscribers in a typical day;meanwhile Hutch, available in 25 provinces in and around Bangkok, claims to have about 900,000 users.
       Your CAT Telecom announced it will try to push Hutchison Group out of the Bangkok-area CDMA service by New Year's Eve; the ever-rancorous Hutchison CAT Wireless Multimedia firm known as Hutch is 75 percent owned by the Hong Kong firm, but CAT has wanted it all for some time.
       No 1 yuppiephone network Advanced Info Service of Shingapore gave yet more gloomy news to its shareholders;managers revised revenue growth and planned expenditures downward again,given a horrible first quarter; Pornrat Janejarassakul, president for vice, said it had reduced total costs in a companywide belt-tightening, and still expected to make its target of 15 percent rise in free cash flow; but profit was down 33.7 percent year on year in the second quarter to 4.2 billion baht, and revenue fell 6.5 percent to 23.5 billion; it that was bad, Mr Pornrat saved the worst for last:"The 43 percent reduction in our international roaming revenue in the second quarter plunged to a record low." No 3 yuppiephone firm True Move of Thailand reported that revenue in the second quarter grew 2.4 percent year on year to 5.6 billion baht; interconnection charges were down, the company ordered in-house belttightening, and non-voice revenue grew by a healthy 7.3 percent.
       Also smiling was Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat) governor Sombat Sarntijaree; electricity usage in August was up by two percent,the first rise in almost a year; Mr Sombat believes that is a sign the economy is coming back; the country burned up almost 8.3 billion kilowatt/hours in the first 20 days of August; that was higher than consumption last October, when electricity use began to fall each month,year on year; annual economic growth is still well below zero.
       Four seats are coming vacant on the National Telecommunications Commission, and the frantically busy Information and Communications Technology Minister Ranongruk Suwanchawee was working hard to fill them; until she does, the NTC will continue its hard work with just three members; three of the original Magnificent Seven drew short straws to see who would be first to end their terms, and a fourth seat was left vacant when board member Artorn Chantvimol resigned; at the moment,35 people have applied to serve the nation selflessly as NTC members.The National Telecommunications Commission managed to register 4,500 community radio stations in its scheme to control the airwaves; the NTC convinced almost all owners of stations that if they did not register, they would be deemed illegal; the NTC has decreed that the stations can continue to broadcast for a year without any sort of licence,although the commission also claims the right to close any station for broadcasting bad stuff; it is not known how many stations rejected the NTC control,although the voice of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) flatly refused to register.
       Asia Books , a success story in the 20th century, blamed a drop in tourists for flat sales so far this year; sales to foreigners have dropped 30 percent since January, with sales to Thais up by 10 percent, although managing director Phumate Manuphibul said prospects for the second half of the year look brighter; some wonder, however,whether Asia Books' reluctance to get into the e-book business has some effect.Electronics manufacturers reported their sales were rising again, and collectively they are using 80 percent of capacity as third-quarter performance built on the recovery in the second quarter; big firms like Cal-Comp Electronics (Thailand)and Western Digital saw surging profits in the second quarter, and are taking on staff again to keep up with demand,especially from overseas.
       Kodak (Thailand), which can hardly sell a camera any more, said it expects 2009 revenue to at least match last year's mark, by stressing printing of photos;the company is pushing Kodak Kiosk and Kodak Express Digital Online, and claims customers love the convenience;by next month, Kodak should have kiosks in post offices. Photos flourish on paper, and so does advertising;Thailand Post said actual mail delivery rose from 1.05 billion letters in 2005 to 1.3 billion last year; but the type of letter has changed;"The number of letters has increased over the past four years,but most of them are business letters,"said Wiboon Sereechaiporn, assistant president for vice; most letters these days are company mail and advertising,as people move to the computer for their correspondence.

DTAC begins Bangkok trial of 3G wireless broadband

2009-08-31T21:07:00.000-07:00

       Total Access Communication (DTAC) yesterday kicked off a non-commercial trial of a third-generation wireless broadband service on its existing 850-megahertz spectrum.
       The move is aimed at preparing itself for the expected granting of 3G licences.
       CEO Tore Johnsen said the main purpose of the "DTAC Mobile Internet on 3G" trial was not to test the well-proven 3G technology, but rather to ensure the company's operations were prepared for upcoming commercial operations, especially the granting of new 3G licences.
       The area covered by the initial phase of the trial includes Chulalongkorn University, Pantip Plaza, MBK Centre, Siam Square, the Samyan area and Chamchuri Square, using 18 3G base stations. The coverage area will soon be expanded to other areas of Bangkok from an additional 18 base stations.
       DTAC will start giving out free 3G air cards and free airtime today to 2,000 selected users of laptop computers who will access the wireless broadband Internet service via the 3G network throughout the trial period, which runs until December 31.
       The trial will cost Bt100 million, for
       network development and marketing activities.
       Advanced Info Service (AIS) and True Move have already test-launched 3G services on their existing spectra, ahead of DTAC.
       AIS began a trial on its existing 900MHz spectrum in Chiang Mai in June 2008 and later in central Bangkok, while True Move recently launched a 3G trial on its 800MHz spectrum in central Bangkok and Hua Hin.
       During its trial, DTAC plans to conduct a customer survey to gather feedback on customer satisfaction, giving it better insight into customer behaviour and demands and assisting in the design of better products and services.
       DTAC cited studies by the National Statistical Office, TOT and the Boston Consulting Group that found the number of broadband subscribers in Thailand rose from 200,000 in 2000 to 1.8 million last year. However, it said broadband use was still limited by coverage from fixed-line networks that did not reach households in remote areas.
       DTAC has said many times it wants to launch 3G services on both the 850MHz and 2.1-gigahertz spectra.
       The National Telecommunications Commission plans to auction four licences on the 2.1GHz 3G spectrum but has yet to set a date. Telecommunications-industry sources believe the auction will take place either late this year or early next year.
       DTAC is also waiting for a state committee set up under Article 22 of the Public-Private Joint Venture Act to approve the commercial launch of its 3G service on the 850MHz spectrum. Earlier, CAT Telecom, which owns DTAC's mobile concession, said it expected approval to be given in this year's second quarter.
       Meanwhile, Johnsen said he believed Thailand's economy would pick up slightly in the second half of the year but cautioned a full recovery would take time.

STUDY INDENTIFIES STOCKS GIVING MOST VALUE TO INVESTORS

2009-08-27T21:36:00.000-07:00

       PTT, PTT Exploration and Production, Advanced Info Service, Siam Cement, Siam City Cement, Ratchaburi Electricity Generating Holding, BEC World and Bumrungrad Hospital are the eight stocks that have returned the most value to investors over the past six years.
       The findings came from a study by Nida Business School based on market value added (MVA) and economic value added (EVA), Aekkachai Nittayagasetwat, dean of Business Administration, told a seminar yesterday on Crisis Watch series 9 "Investment@ Risk Rating Map".
       MVA and EVA are methods used to evaluate how much a company's executives would be able to add value to their company's stock.
       One of the conclusions is that despite showing net profit, a company might not have the potential to grow consistently in the future. Most stock investment analysis is based on the book value of a company, which generally reflects the company's operating results but misses operating risks both short and long term.
       On the other hand, an MVA and EVA analysis includes opportunity costs, investment risk of new projects and accumulated gains or losses. The real value of a stock is reflected. For example, a company could invest in a certain project that has a chance of not generating revenues in the future.
       The MVA study alone covered listed firms over the past seven years starting in 2002. Seven stocks were listed in the top 10 all the time. They were PTT, PTTEP, AIS, SCG, Shin Corp, Land and Houses, and Ratch.
       MVA reflects the positive expectation that investors have for certain stocks.
       The EVA found four stocks listed in the top 10 each year - PTT, AIS, PTTEP and SCCC. Stocks on the top10 list for six years were SCG, Ratch and BEC. This reflects regular profitmaking in terms of the economics of these firms.
       Combining MVA and EVA, the institute came up with the eight stocks with the highest valueadded to investors who are looking for longterm investment opportunities in stocks with strong fundamentals and regular performance in both stock price and earnings.
       Sukit Udomsirikul, deputy managing director of Siam City Research Institute, said the global economy already bottomed out in the first half of the year and would move toward a more stable stage in the second half.
       However, the recovery rate depends largely on the government's stimulus policies.
       "Although global economic recovery is on the way, there's still some risk. The growth in GDP was mainly due to government investment, while the private sector has hardly invested. With government spending, economic growth could become a W-shaped recovery," he said.

HARD TECHNOLOGY NEEDS SOFT TOUCH

2009-08-27T21:35:00.000-07:00

       Papon Ratanachaikanont, deputy group chief commercial officer at True, explains the "retailisation" movement being championed at Thailand's only fully integrated telecommunitations and media company to The Nation's Pichaya Changsorn.

       About three years ago, when Papon Ratanachaikanont proposed to True's board of directors that the company set up coffee outlets, he was stunned by a question from one board member who asked bluntly: "Who are you?"
       Having just left the local unit of auto-maker Mazda to joining the telecom conglomerate, Papon had yet to prove himself.
       However, after some intense debate, the board approved Papon's plan, which he now admits was intended to be no more than a "marketing gimmick."
       "That's how savvy our board was. They approved a budget of more than Bt100 million and ordered me to return the money within three years," he said.
       The entrepreneurial task was a big challenge. Papon himself had not expected True to pursue the business. "We first approached Starbucks for a partnership, but they said they did not know us," he said.
       Today, True Coffee has paid back the original investment and is a profitable enterprise, Papon said.
       As a vote of confidence and part of the group's "convergence" business policy, the parent company in March assigned Papon to take care of all of the group's retailing units and customer service points, totalling nearly 400 outlets, and unit them. These include True Shops, handling fixed-line telephone and Internet business, the outlets of cellular-phone business True Move, customer-service points for cable-TV unit True Vision, True Coffee and 167 new iPhone kiosks established over the past 45 days under Papon's direction in big discount stores and retail complexes, such as Tesco Lotus.
       The physical merger of True'e retail outlets is now complete, but there remains a lot of back-office work to be done, and one of the most challenging areas is people management. Papon, who was earlier responsible for True Coffee, with fewer than 40 outlets and a combined staff of 160, is now managing nearly 400 group outlets employing 2,500 people.
       But why did he go for coffee in the first place?
       Papon said he believed in the "retailisation" trend now seen around the world. Technology is a "hard side" of the business. People are unable actually to feel and touch it, so it needs an "aesthetic" feature like coffee to merge into it.
       "I began with a stark contrast - coffee and technology - but people liked it. A 'soft touch' is important, because it gives an aesthetic dimension to people's communications with True," he said.
       "In the previous environment, customers felt like they owed us, because they came in with the sole purpose of paying telecom bills. There was no way to improve customer touch points."
       In terms of the company's bottom line, True shops are now no longer a pure cost, accepted in the interests of earining income. Coffee and bakery sales have softened this status.
       A new True shop recently opened in Central Chon Buri, the first outlet to merge coffee and other services from day one. Up to 100 True shops will soon incorporate a full coffee-store format, while the rest might have self-service coffee sales or other 'soft-side' features, Papon said.
       "It's a reverse psychology. Consumers would not be able to find us if we 'converged' without all of the physical presences," Papon said, referring to True's "convergence lifestyle" business philolophy of cross-selling and cross-marketing its Internet-access, cable-TV and wi wired and wireless telephone-network service.
       A longer-term goal is to transform all of True's physical outlets into "third-generation destinations" and lifestyle centres for consumers, he said.

Demand lifts True iPhone sales target

2009-08-26T21:46:00.000-07:00

       True Corporation is raising its iPhone sales target by 50% this year to 150,000 units following overwhelming response to the 3G S WiFi model during prebookings.
       The bookings over a two-week period that ended on Monday tripled the company's projection, said Papon Ratanachaikanont, deputy chief commercial officer of True Corp.
       "The pre-booking list was a surprisingly positive response, beyond our expectations for both True and Apple Inc,"he said.
       "We are now facing a supply shortage problem, with Apple committed to allocating some quotas from other countries to Thailand."
       True has already obtained the first batch of 3,500 units. The second batch of the same number was scheduled early next month and an additional 3,500 units would be delivered later next month.
       Mr Papon said the delivery of 3,500 iPhone 3G S handsets will be made on Friday for pre-booking customers first in Bangkok at 112 True shops. Deliveries for the remaining bookings would be completed next month.
       True initially expected to deliver the iPhone 3G S WiFi starting tomorrow under its pre-booking projection volume of 3,500 units, the same number it prepared for the first launch of iPhone 3G in February.
       True, together with Apple, will compensate the pre-booking customers on the waiting list with a genuine-leather case worth 1,200 baht for free.
       The iPhone 3G S Wi-Fi comes in two models: the 16-gigabyte model which costs 24,500 baht, and the 32-gigabyte model priced at 28,500 baht. The phones feature a Thai keyboard, double-speed processor performance and a 3-megapixel digital camera. It allows users to send multimedia messages and to record and edit video clips.
       "We expect the sales of iPhone 3G S WiFi handsets to double to 100,000 this year, lifting our total iPhone sales projection from 100,000 to 150,000 units,"Mr Papon said.
       True has sold 50,000 units of 8-gigabyte iPhone handsets since the February launch.
       Mr Papon attributed the success of the new iPhone model to the company's 18,000 WiFi locations nationwide plus a variety of 50,000 iPhone applications and 50 applications from True.
       He also said the success had strengthened the group's mobile-phone business unit True Move, with the number of its high-margin postpaid subscriber base surging by 50% or 80,000 year-onyear in the second quarter.
       The proportion of existing iPhone users shifting to True Move also increased to 60% from 40% early this year.

Ill wind blows no good

2009-08-26T00:24:00.000-07:00

       Morakot was no Emerald; it was an ill wind that whipped up seas and cut or damaged six separated fibre-optic cables carrying Internet traffic to Thailand; the typhoon itself never hit Thailand, but while it killed an estimated 500 Taiwanese,Morakot caused deep-sea landslides that severed three cables and disrupted three others, including the SWM-3 (Southeast Asia - Middle East - Western Europe 3)and both APCN (Asia Pacific Cable Network) that carry Internet and telephone traffic to and from Thailand; the Net slowed noticeably, but picked up after a couple of days when engineers managed to quickly repair the APCN2 cable between Singapore and Malaysia, while traffic was re-routed to other systems.
       The top three yuppiephone networks announced a convoluted "solution" to SMS spam, now estimated at nine million annoyances a day; starting next Monday, if you get an unwanted commercial message on your mobile phone,call your network's anti-spam centre,explained what happened, and they will try to block any other calls from the spammer - the AIS number to call is 1175,DTAC is 1678 and True Move is1331, and the theory is that the 30-million-baht software they have installed and the highly trained staff they have hired will combine to block the spam across all three networks; Thana Thienachariya, chief commercial officer at DTAC, said blocking spam would cut revenue at all three yuppiephone firms, who have profited by selling SMS time in blocks to advertisers; in other words, he already knows where the calls are coming from.
       Bangkok telephone provider True Corp and their yuppiephone subsidiary True Move began advertising "revolutionary" international phone rates of "only" three baht a minute to mostcalled countries; the rate, cheap at half the price, is about half what the telecoms duopoly of your TOT and your Cattelecom charge, but about twice the cost of the most popular long-distance specialists like DeeDial and ZayHi ; the True rates only will last until New Year's Eve.
       If corporate diversification is a sign that the recession is ending, then we got good news from Delta Electronics (Thailand); president Henry Shieh said the Taiwan-based electronics firm is about to acquire solar-power equipment makers in the US and Europe to get out of traditional electric sources and into larger technology areas; he bragged that,"Our cash on hand of over 8 billion baht also supports our investments,"and while Thailand plants are running at only 65 percent capacity making fans and converters, profits in the second quarter were still a healthy 301 million baht.
       Also upbeat: CEO Watchai Vilailuck ofSamart Corp , who said business was looking up, with revenues increasing by 17 percent year on year in the second quarter to 4.44 billion baht; although profit remained stagnant at just under 125 million, Mr Watchai said he sees clear economic skies ahead, and expects to introduce 20 new yuppiephone handsets before New Year's Eve to feed what he is certain is growing demand in Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Bangladesh and Cambodia, as well as Thailand.
       Not everyone was bragging and sunny; No 1 yuppiephone firm Advanced Info Service of Shingapore announced major changes at the very top of the firm's food chain to try to adjust to negative growth and increased competition; AIS tried to spin the changes as restructuring, but in fact the major changes were personnel; Singaporean Hui Weng Cheong was promoted from deputy president to the newly created position of chief operating officer, where he will take over marketing, customer management and handset distribution;president Wichian Mektrakarn was moved to CEO and the president's position was dissolved; AIS has recently realistically changed its revenue target from 4 percent growth to minus-3 percent, bizarrely blaming oil prices and the flu pandemic; chairman Somprasong Boonyachai said you should be ashamed of yourself for thinking the changes at the top were because of poor operating results, it's just all part of a careful,long-planned succession plan.
       The company formerly known as Shin Satellite insisted it will break out of its habit of losses and break even this year,thanks to higher bandwidth sales from its iPSTAR broadband satellite; it's not all rosy for Thaicom , however; Tanadit Charoenchan, executive president of vice, revealed that,"We expect iPSTAR's bandwidth usage to reach 15 percent this year, up from 10 percent currently."
       Then there is Grammy Entertainment , which reported no harm, no foul in its first-half results, a profit of 314.2 million baht on slightly increased revenue of 3.95 billion, boosted almost exclusively by TV programming, while music sales fell four per cent.
       Finally, consider the case of bank employee Nawanit Noichana,; he posted a message on the Sanook.com forums soliciting readers to have sex with a certain Ms Som, and providing her real phone number; it was all a prank or something worse, because Ms Som was certainly not that kind of woman; the Criminal Court judge found him guilty under the Computer Crime Act, but then sentenced him to just 12 hours of community service and a one-year suspended imprisonment.

Callers ring for service

2009-08-26T00:23:00.001-07:00

       In terms of mobile phones at least, Thailand is one of the world's most communicative nations. There are more phones than people, according to the United Nations, and marketing figures show that more than 90% of all Thais above school age carry mobile phones.
       But there is big trouble among this handset group.Even though there is competition, subscribers are routinely abused by the big companies who control the mobile phone business. There are signs the subscribers are getting angry enough to do something about it.
       A recent meeting in Bangkok brought representatives of phone-using groups from across the region into one room to talk about mobile phone networks. The consumers were not at all happy. Complaints ranged from poor quality of calls to lack of help when subscribers switch systems, particularly in keeping their old numbers.So-called "mobile spam" in the form of unwanted text messages infuriates most phone owners. But the biggest complaint of mobile phone users in Thailand and around the region centres on the extra charges - unadvertised and unexplained to users, and available only in the small print on contracts, if at all.
       Some consumers believe the phone companies have deliberately misled their customers in order to boost the bottom line. And in Thailand, the bottom line of mobile companies is very impressive indeed. Last week,the No.1 network Advanced Info Services reported its second-quarter story of woe. Founded by fugitive expremier Thaksin Shinawatra and now controlled by Singaporean interests, AIS claims to have 27.9 million subscribers, most of whom pay in advance for their phone services. The company complained that its net profit between April and June dropped to "only"4.2 billion baht, on revenue of 25.2 billion.
       It's tough to feel sorry for companies making that sort of profit in the midst of a recession. The other two top phone companies, DTAC and True Move, report similar profits, in line with their customer base.
       The UN's International Telecommunications Union recently reported that Thailand has 118 phones per 100 people of phone-using age. With that number of customers contributing that sort of income to the top phone companies, along with the government duopoly which also makes substantial profits from the business,consumers should get more for their baht.
       The three major mobile companies recently made what can only be called a sham attempt to address the problem of text-spam. In fact, they well know who is sending unwanted messages to complaining customers.An AIS official admitted his company profits by selling blocks of SMS calls to commercial firms.
       Consumers are beginning to appeal to the government and to the National Telecommunications Commission for action. The phone firms, getting a few baht here and a couple more there from almost every advancepay customer, are making huge profits on questionable business deals. And they still won't even allow subscribers to take their numbers with them when they change providers, claiming it is far too difficult.
       The government can, and will do only so much.Consumers owe it to themselves to organise against any perceived mistreatment by the phone firms. Questionable deals should be heavily publicised - members of the media are phone users, too. In extreme cases,boycotts can work far better than slow government officials. Telephone users, meaning pretty well all citizens,deserve a better deal. They should send a strong message to the phone companies that they are not going to take shoddy service any longer.

TELECOM UNION URGES ACCESS FOR DISABLED

2009-08-24T23:11:00.000-07:00

       The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is urging lawmakers and regulators in Asia-Pacific countries to make a greater effort to provide access to information and communication technology for disabled people.
       The message will be delivered at an Asia-Pacific Regional Forum on Mainstreaming ICT Accessibility for Persons with Disabilities which starts today at the United Nations Conference Centre in Bangkok and runs until Thursday.
       The head of the ITU's Asia-Pacific regional office, Eun-Ju Kim, said the forum would also introduce the "e-Accessible Policy Toolkit for Persons with Disabilities", developed by ITU and G3ict.
       The policy toolkit aims to support various stakeholders in developing policies and strategies for ICT accessibility for disabled people, in line with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).
       The toolkit provides a framework for developing policies and strategies for mainstreaming digital accessibility at regional, national and international levels and offers specific guidance to developing countries.
       "We aim to raise awareness and generate momentum for the implementation of the CRPD, especially in countries across this region. Participants at the forum will exchange experiences and case studies, as well as learning about innovative ICT-accessibility measures for disabled people, especially through assistive technologies and applications," Kim said.
       She said that initiatives in Thailand for ICT accessibility for disabled people, led by HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, who was also one of ITU's Patrons, had been carried out. However, the government still needed to take action.
       "ICT accessibility policies, especially for disabled people, will not emerge overnight. Consistent and persistent steps must be taken to properly design policies and to implement them for an effective ICT-accessible environment in any given country," Kim said.
       ICT-accessibility issues must be considered in relevant laws, regulations, policies and programmes at all stages from design to implementation. She gave as examples Web technologies including information services, websites and online applications; public access terminals such as ATMs, information kiosks, vending machines, information displays, point-of-sale payment systems and door-entry systems; and application software, telecommunication devices and services.
       The most recent survey in Thailand, undertaken by the National Statistical Office in 2007, showed that around 1.9 million people, or about 2.9 per cent of the population, had disabilities.
       Despite efforts to bridge the digital divide, the gap for disabled people is getting wider and deeper as they fail to catch up with new technologies and services, while assistive technologies, devices and applications specifically designed for these people are barely affordable, she said.
       Kim emphasised the role of not only policy-makers and regulators, but also that of industries, in their ability to contribute appropriate designs and affordable ICT products and services for disabled people - taking into account potential markets in an ageing society.
       "ICT products and services built with the needs of disabled people in mind will be easier for everyone to use. This helps people who are not technologically skilled to use these products and services. Otherwise, they will be intimidated by them and won't use them," she said.
       The ITU will continue to promote the toolkit and deliver appropriate training based on the toolkit to various stakeholders, including policy-makers, regulators and others interested in mainstreaming, developing and implementing ICT accessibility issues for disabled people.
       "In Thailand, the ITU is working with the ICT Ministry, the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) and Nectec in areas such as accessibility standards, telecommunications relay services, policy and regulations and human-capacity building," Kim said.

Shin says stake sale depends on market

2009-08-24T23:10:00.000-07:00

       A plan by Singapore's Temasek Holdings to sell its stake in Shin Corp will depend on market conditions, an executive at the company said yesterday.
       The plan is followed closely by investors as it is likely to increase the volume of Shin shares trading in the market.Some analysts see the stock as a good proxy for the telecoms industry but say the low free float is a trading risk.
       "Our major shareholder has a policy to dilute its stake, but timing will depend on the economic situation and market conditions," Tomyantee Kongpoolsilpa,a senior manager for investor relations at Shin, told reporters.
       Shin was founded by former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and control of the company was sold to Temasek by his family back in 2006.
       Shin's free float dropped to under 4%, below the 15% threshold required by the Stock Exchange of Thailand, following Temasek's $3.8-billion takeover.
       Under a complicated structure, Shin is 96.12% owned by two Thai-registered companies, Cedar Holdings and Aspen Holdings.
       Aspen is owned directly by a Temasek subsidiary, while Cedar is 49% owned by Temasek.
       The Singapore state investment firm had planned to dilute its holding in Shin Corp to 49%, but the plan is on hold pending a probe into whether the takeover broke laws limiting foreign ownership of Thai firms to 49%.
       Kim Eng Securities said in a note that the Shin shares looked interesting because of third-generation mobile phone licences to be issued to its 43%-owned Advanced Info Service (AIS) and the progress of the iPSTAR satellite business run by its 41%-owned Thaicom.
       Shares in Shin, valued at $2.1 billion on the Thai bourse, ended 0.9% higher at 23 baht after touching a 12-month high of 23.30 baht earlier. The overall Thai stock market was 1.3% higher.
       The current value of Shin shares is under half the price Temasek paid,49.25 baht, in January 2006.
       Shin groups more than 20 companies in the wireless, satellite, Internet and media sectors, with AIS, Thailand's largest mobile-phone operator, contributing more than 80% of its profit.

Legal disputes could slow industry

2009-08-24T08:18:00.000-07:00

       More legal problems could impede the growth of the telecom industry by preventing the full implementation of three regulations issued by the National Telecommunications Commission, a telecom expert has warned.
       Anuparb Thiralarp, a former advisory member of the House Telecommunications Commission, said that at least three NTC regulations were likely to face challenges: mobile number port-ability, interconnection rates and standard contracts for consumers.
       The regulation for mobile number portability was issued on July 15 and became law after it was published in the Royal Gazette . It stipulates that mobile operators must be ready for people to use the service within three months,so that from the end of November mobile phone users can switch operators but retain their old numbers, he said.
       But private mobile phone operators have insisted they cannot meet the law's timeframe - a central traffic clearing system needs a year to be built and completed - and have informed the NTC, he said.
       The NTC's second headache is in-terconnection regulations, which became effective three years ago.
       But only three major mobile operators have entered the interconnection regime.
       The three operators merely book and clear their interconnection traffic fees on their financial statements as reserved items. The NTC has not penalised private operators that have yet to join the interconnection regime.
       A regulation on standard contracts also remains a paper tiger, despite being issued three years ago, he said.
       The standard contract between operators and customers is significant because it should protect customers in 11 aspects.
       Its clauses prohibit mobile operators from fixing expiry dates on prepaid cards,oblige operators to refund money left on prepaid cards and prevent operators from terminating services while engaged in legal disputes with customers.
       Mobile operators submitted copies of their standard contracts to the NTC for approval long ago and are still waiting for its endorsement, he said.
       These regulations have yet to be implemented and the consumer protection association on telecom services should speed up the process, he said.
       Mr Anuparb predicted legal disputes if customers wanted to take advantage of number portability but operators could not offer it.
       The Telecommunications Consumers Protection Institute and the NTC should be ready to receive complaints over this, he said.
       Several other problems between operators and customers are yet to be resolved, particularly operators who terminate the fixed-line or mobile services of defaulting customers and then demand fees and unpaid bills to restore services.
       The NTC told DTAC to refund a customer over this issue. But DTAC has appealed for a renewed investigation,he said.
       This case applied only to DTAC but other operators were still collecting reconnection fees, he said.

AIS cuts revenue target

2009-08-24T08:17:00.002-07:00

       The mobile market leader Advanced Info Service (AIS) revised down its 2009 revenue growth target and capital expenditure plan in light of the worsethan-expected operating results in the first half.
       The company reduced its revenue growth target from a range of 3-4% to between -3% and zero this year. It also trimmed the capital expenditure plan to 11 billion baht from the original 13-15 billion.
       However, AIS affirmed its target of free cash flow growth of 15% this year thanks to a 6% reduction in total costs following a series of internal cost-control measures.
       Its earnings before interest, taxes,depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA)margin also increased slightly to 44.8%in the second quarter, from 42.5% in the same quarter last year.
       "The guidance figure reduction was based on the calculated factors of no improvement in second-quarter performance and no clear signs yet of a fast economic recovery," said Pornrat Janejarassakul, vice-president for marketing and planning of AIS.
       AIS's net profit fell 33.7% year-onyear to 4.2 billion baht in the second quarter. Revenue fell 6.5% to 23.6 billion baht. First-half net profit was 8.8 billion baht, down 23.5%, on revenue of 47.8 billion, down 6% from a year earlier.
       Mr Pornrat attributed the poor performance to a sharp drop in tourist numbers due to political tensions and the H1N1 flu, which resulted in a 34%drop in its international roaming revenue and a 13% drop in international direct dialling earnings.
       "The 43% reduction in our international roaming revenue in the second quarter plunged to a record low figure,"he said.
       Mr Pornrat said AIS decided to reduce its investment budget in order to match the stagnant growth in the local mobile market. The company spent around 5.9 billion baht on expanding its existing 2G network in the first half.
       AIS expects positive growth in the fourth quarter, aided by high seasonal business, economic improvement and a tourism rebound.
       This year, AIS expects 3 million new subscribers out of a forecast industry total of 6 million.
       However, Mr Pornrat said the number of new subscribers did not necessarily mean business was very healthy as some mobile users now have two or more SIM cards.
       For AIS, he said revenue growth provided an indication of business growth.With a 6% reduction in voice revenue in the first half, AIS was shifting its focus to non-voice services with a growth target of 20% this year.
       Non-voice revenue now contributes 16% of total revenue for AIS, up from 13% last year.
       AIS shares (ADVANC) rose 75 satang yesterday on the Stock Exchange of Thailand to close at 89 baht, in trade worth 288.5 million baht.

AIS warms your heart with its latest Personalbutler on-line service

2009-08-24T08:17:00.001-07:00

Mr. Somchai Lertsutiwong, Executive Vice President-Marketing, Advanced Info Service Plc. (AIS), recently announced the luanch of AIS newest service called "อุ่นใจช่วยได (Aun-Jai-Chouy-Dai)" that takes a role of personal assistant 24 hours a day. AIS customers simply access the website www.ais.co.th/personalbutler to find any information needed such as handset setting, promotion assistant, job search, travel, health and many more.
"อุ่นใจช่วยได้ (Aun-Jai-Chouy-Dai)" is accessible from anywhere in the country and also available on mobile phone. To show the company's continual effort and dedication to providing the highest standard of quality service to its customers, this project is therefore introduced to effectively serve AIS customers and enhance customers comfort and convenient. AIS works in close cooperation with a many experienced web partners including www.Tourismthailand. org (travel) www.Guitarthai.com (entertainment-guitar) www.Dhamma4u.com (Dhama), www.Taklong.com (Photography), www.ejobeasy.com (job search), www.cheewajit.com (health) and wwwvcharkam.com (tutors) to ensure a variety of services for AIS customers.

United against spam

2009-08-24T08:16:00.000-07:00

       The three biggest mobile phone networks agreed to work together on a common goal - to reduce,and then to remove entirely the estimated nine million SMS spam messages sent to yuppiephone owners every day out of the total of 270 million texts;luckily for subscribers, almost all the spam they get is from the mobile phone companies, so this campaign should be a raging success within minutes;operators AIS of Shingapore,DTAC ofNorway and True Move of Thailand promised to spend 30 million baht on anti-spam software for the systems, and to try to block unsolicited messages across networks; special phone lines have been set up so subscribers can call the three companies whenever they want to block a certain spam.
       The decidedly discourteous Nawanit Noichana,31, posted a message on Sanook.com forums suggesting that men might want to call a certain Ms Som for free sex, and provided her actual number; Ms Som in fact was totally unavailable and never knew about the message until she started getting nasty messages, courtesy of her old "friend";the judge was quite understanding about it all, and sentenced Nawanit to 12 hours of community service under threat of a one-year suspended jail sentence.
       CEO Adisak Sukumvitaya of Jay Mart predicted his firm would quadruple its market share with a new marketing emphasis on its JFone house brand,from 8.5 percent in March to 40 percent by year's end; he claimed that JFones match the leading brands in functionality including 3G compatibility. Electronics manufacturer Stars Microelectronics (Thailand), prospering thanks to global sales of its keypads, announced plans to launch an IPO on the Stock Exchange of Thailand before the end of September.
       World No 1 yuppiephone firm Nokia of Finland warned of "rampant counterfeiting" which might confuse consumers into buying a non-Nokia phone.
       Whoa, dood, where's my recession?The Software Industry Promotion Agency reported that the Thai software industry looks likely to grow by six percent this year, outperforming virtually every economic sector; the big reason,said SIPA president Rungruang Limchoopatipa, is heavy demand from neighbouring countries for quality software, digital content and video animation sectors.
       Manager Radio , the audio version of ASTV and voice of the yellow shirts and their People's Alliance for Democracy, stuck a sharp stick in the eye of the National Telecommunications Commission; there is no way, said the station's director Kongkiat Buddhalikit,that Manager Radio will pre-register as a community station as the NTC has demanded of every information radio service in the country; Mr Kongkiat told the media that Manager Radio is not a community station according to the NTC's own definition, and will not submit to the commission's authority; according to official figures, Manager was among an estimated 1,000 radio stations holding out on the registration demand,while more than 4,000 stations had succumbed to the demand to register, in return for a temporary one-year broadcast licence; under the licence terms,the NTC can suggest programming to radio stations.
       GMM Grammy and RShave found recently that community radio is a great new channel for promoting their music;Soopachai Nillawan, managing director of the RS subsidiary Rsiam, said community radio is especially effective at promoting Luk Thung music, as local disk jockeys become influential with listeners; luckily there is absolutely no chance that any segment of the recording industry would stoop to paying DJs to play their music over that of rivals.
       The government announced billions in subsidies to encourage Thais to drive more, and to use more electricity. The government tried to press ahead with promotion of so-called flex-fuel vehicles able to use 85-percent ethanol, but reviving automakers and oil companies said it was far too early to promote alternative energy, since there are almost no vehicles able to use it; Energy Minister Wannarat Channukul asked for lower import duties so that Thais can bring in foreign-made cars instead of buying locally made autos. The Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand said the government still owes 20 billion baht it has given in fuel subsidies, but Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and his cabinet went ahead with new subsidies which will further add to the Egat debt by decreasing the cost of fuel tariffs (Ft)on the monthly electricity bills.

True reports healthy Q2 on better cost controls

2009-08-24T08:15:00.000-07:00

       True Corporation reported a strong consolidated net profit of 1.4 billion baht in the second quarter, compared with a loss of 3.5 billion in the same period last year, thanks to a sharp improvement in mobile phone operations together with cost controls and foreign exchange gains.
       But revenue was up only 0.3% in the quarter to 15.12 billion - and down 2.8% from 15.56 billion in the first quarter.
       For the first half, True recorded a consolidated net profit of 1.043 billion baht, up from a loss of 152 million a year earlier.
       President and CEO Suphachai Chearavanont said cost controls and the fourth consecutive reduction of interconnection charges as well as popular 8 Mbps broadband internet service helped the company despite the downturn and low seasonal business.
       The group's convergence strategy continued its progress with the number of subscribers using two or more products up 26% to 2 million households.
       Revenue in the second quarter, excluding interconnection charges (IC),rose by 0.8% to 12.8 billion baht. Earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) jumped 15.8%year-on-year to 5 billion baht.
       At the mobile unit True Move, revenue excluding IC grew 2.4% year-on-year to 5.6 billion baht, thanks to lower net IC payments, costs controls, and a 7.3%increase in non-voice revenue along with strong postpaid subscriber growth.
       The company added 243,000 new subscribers in the second quarter,80,000 of whom were postpaid subscribers. Its postpaid subscriber base surged by 50%from a year ago, with postpaid revenue up 16.9% to 1.4 billion baht.
       TrueOnline's revenue was 6.5 billion baht, up 2.4%, driven by strong growth in new revenue streams from international direct dialling and data gateway businesses. Broadband revenue also grew 9.8% to 1.3 billion baht with a subscriber base of 647,000, helped by higher revenue from the 8Mbps premium package.
       But pay-TV unit TrueVisions reported a 3% drop in revenue to 2.3 billion baht due mainly to the rescheduling of its Academy Fantasia. But its subscriber base increased 37% to 1.6 million.
       Noppadol Dej-udom, the chief financial officer, said the second quarter's strong performance was considered a test of True's financial acumen.
       The group's long-term debt fell to its lowest level since the 1997 crisis.
       "Our net debt-to-EBITDA ratio now stands at 3 times, compared to 3.5 times last year," he said, adding that the company wanted to see the ratio at 2.5.

Telecom firms flout mobile phone rules

2009-08-24T08:14:00.000-07:00

       Toothless state agencies are enabling powerful telecom giants to reap huge and unfair revenues from pre-paid mobile phone users, a seminar has been told.
       Thousands of customers have complained of unjust treatment by telecom companies through methods such as selling them pre-paid credit for mobile phones which expires before they have a chance to use it, said Thianchai na Nakorn, a member of the National Telecommunications Commission's panel on contract regulation.
       More than 1,400 users in the central and eastern regions have claimed they lost credit because of an early expiry date on their pre-paid cards, he said.
       Mr Thianchai told a seminar at the NTC on Friday the law was too general to control telecom companies, and state agencies were reluctant to enforce the measures at their disposal.
       The NTC and the Office of the Consumer Protection Board (OCPB) are in charge of controlling the industry.
       Other mobile phone customers lost money because purchased credits were "not usable". Many customers who paid by the month for their mobile service were forced to accept changes to the terms without notice.
       Ninety percent of Thailand's 58 million active mobile phone numbers are paid for on pre-paid credit.
       NTC commissioner Sudharma Yoonaidharma said millions of users could have lost money in unused credits.The money went back to telecom businesses as "free revenue".
       The NTC issued a notification in 2006 prohibiting licensed operators from setting an expiry date on pre-paid credit services.
       However, telecom companies continued to set expiry dates because the fines they face for flouting the notification are too small to act as a deterrent. They also retain any unused credit which customers lose when their prepaid credit expires before it has been fully used.
       The 2006 notification does allow the NTC to ask operators to refund unused credits to users, or fine them if they refuse. However, the fines were too small to be meaningful, and the alternative penalty - revoking an operator's licence - too stiff to be useful.
       Since the industry is dominated by a handful of big operators, revoking an operator's licence could disrupt services to millions of subscribers and users.
       "The NTC wouldn't dare to suspend or halt the operation of a multi-billionbaht business just for this kind of violation," he said.
       "It's a problem of how the agency sets its regulations."
       The agency normally imposes fines instead, but these are too small to make a difference.
       "The NTC needs a law stipulating specific requirements for pre-paid services," he said.
       Ronchai Thongsri, an OCPB official,accepted his agency lacked the authority to control service providers.
       The OCPB has only one regulation,issued in 2000, which controls contractual obligations for mobile phone services paid for by the month, he said.
       It has no regulations governing prepaid services, and is not certain whether it should take a role in regulating this kind of service or leave it to the NTC,the official said.
       Mr Thianchai said the OCPB should issue new regulations to give itself more power and keep up with developments in the industry.

HUTCHISON TELECOM SHARES FALL OVER WEAK OUTLOOK

2009-08-24T08:13:00.001-07:00

       Hutchison Telecommunicatins International's stock fell steeply this week on concern that earnings will decline after the company sold its stake in Israel's Partner Communications, its most profitable unit.
       The emerging-market phone carier, controlled by billionaire Li Kashing resumed trading after a one-day suspension on Thursday.
       Scailex Corp, an investment firm owned by Israeli entrepreneur Ilan Ben Dov, said it will buy 78.9 million Partner shares, or a 51.3 per cent stake, from Hutchison Telecom at US17 (Bt580) apiece.
       After stripping out the contributions from Partner, HTIL is expected to remain loss-making and cash-flow negative for the foreseeable future, Colin McCallum, a Bangkok-based analyst at Credit Suisse Group, wrote in a report.
       McCallum kept his "underperform" rating on Hutchison Telecom shares.
       Partner, Israel's second biggest wireless carrier, accounted for 58 per cent of Hutchison Telecom's sales of 23.7 billion Hong Kong dollars (Bt104 billion) last year, according to the parent's announcement in March.
       Hutchison Telecom will focus on operations in Indonesia, Vietnam and Sri Lanka after the sale of the stake in Partner. Hutchison Telecom will book a pre-tax gain of US$1 billion from the proposed sale, he said.
       Hutchison Telecom posted a first-half loss of HK$285 million, compared with a profit of HK$1.17 billion a year carlier, as it increased spending in Indonesia.
       The sale price in Israel was "reasonably good", Li told reporters at the results briefing of Hutchison Whampoa in Hong Kong on Thursday.
       Hutchison Whampoa, Hutchison Telecom's parent, reported first-half profit fel 33 per cent to KH$5.75 billion, beating the HK$4.8-billion many analyst were expecting.

AIS shakes up front office as market sours

2009-08-24T08:11:00.000-07:00

       Advanced Info Service (AIS), the country's largest mobile phone operator,announced changes in its top management yesterday to deal with economic pressure and stiff competition in the industry.
       The reshuffle is another step in the company's long process of positioning itself as a "young" brand.
       Under the changes, Wichian Mektrakarn, who is currently the president,will become chief executive officer.He succeeds Vikrom Sriprataks, who will become vice-chairman of the executive committee.
       Hui Weng Cheong will be promoted from deputy-president to the newly created position of chief operating officer. In his new role, Mr Hui will take charge of marketing, customer and service management, solutions development and the handset distribution business.
       As part of the reshuffle, the president and deputy-president positions will be dissolved in order to streamline operations. The reshuffle will become effective from Sept 1.
       Somprasong Boonyachai, the chairman of AIS, said the new structure has been designed to manage future growth opportunities and deal with difficult economic pressure.
       Thailand's gross domestic product contracted 7.1% in the first quarter of 2009 and 5.9% in the second quarter.GDP is projected to contract between 2.5% and 3.5% this year, said Mr Somprasong."The recession has caused operators to face a sharp drop in the minutes of calls and international roaming revenues," he said.
       The restructure is also to cope with the competitive environment where operators are shifting their focus from acquisition to customer retention.
       AIS reduced its revenue growth target from between 3% and 4% to between -3% and zero because of oil prices and H1N1 flu. The company reported a second-quarter profit of 4.2 billion baht,down from 6.3 billion a year earlier and 4.57 billion in the first quarter.Revenue in the second quarter fell 33%.
       Mr Somprasong said the mobile phone market was relatively healthy compared with other industries such as hotels and automobiles. However,AIS will be more careful in operating the business in the second half due to the unclear economic outlook.
       Mr Somprasong said the reshuffle had nothing to do with the company's poor operating results, insisting it was to lay the foundation for future growth opportunities and empower the top management team.
       The move was part of the company's succession plan to have senior executives periodically review their top executives and those in lower levels to determine several backups for each senior position, he said.
       AIS shares (ADVANC) closed yesterday on the Stock Exchange of Thailand at 88.50 baht, down one baht, in trade worth 729.5 million baht.

AIS NAMES WICHIAN AS CEO, LOOKS AHEAD TO 3G

2009-08-24T08:09:00.000-07:00

       Advanced Info Service (AIS) will try its best to maintain its good performance and customer base this year, despite the revision of the company's revenue outlook for the year to negative growth.
       Chief executive officer-designate Wichian Mektrakarn spoke yesterday, adding that the country's largest cellular operator would move faster in delivering services to the market.
       On Thursday the AIS board of directors approved the appointment of three executives to new posts, to be effective September 1.
       Wichian, who is AIS existing president, was approved to be chief executive officer, replacing Vikrom Sripataks. Wichian will be responsible for leading the AIS business operations and subsidiaries.
       Vikrom was approved to be vice chairman of the executive committee in charge of strategic direction.
       Deputy president Hui Weng Cheong was approved to be chief operating officer.
       Vice chairman of the board, Somprasong Boonyachai, said that the appointments were not the company's reaction to the negative economic outlook but in line with the management succession plan.
       According to an AIS filing to the Stock Exchange of Thailand yesterday, it has revised the service revenue growth outlook this year down to between minus 3 per cent to zero from the previous forecast of between 3-per-cent and 4-per-cent growth. This is to reflect the weaker-than-expected financial result in the first half and expected slow economic recovery in the second half.
       It also revised down capital expenditure to Bt11 billion this year from the previous Bt13 billion to Bt15 billion. Of the total, Bt6 billion were spent in the first half.
       AIS said the 3G licence will be the key milestone this year, as AIS is working closely on all fronts to ensure the highest possibility of attaining the new licence. It expects the National Telecommunications Commission to auction 2.1GHz-3G spectrum licences in the first quarter next year.
       AIS posted consolidated net profit of Bt4.197 billion in the second quarter this year, decreasing 33.7 per cent year on year, due to the seasonally weak quarter and economic decline. For the first half, net profit was Bt8.765 billion, a decrease of 23.5 per cent year on year. AIS has around 27.9 million subscribers.