The chairman of TOT Plc says he will resign if the bid for the state telecom enterprise’s 19-billion-baht 3G network expansion project fails to materialise by the end of this month.
Areepong: Contract to be signed in February
Areepong Bhoocha-oom, who is also the permanent secretary of the Finance Ministry, said bidding documents could be sold by next week so that the bid could be called by the end of the month and the contract with the winner signed in February.
If this timetable is not met, he said he would “review” himself.
Mr Areepong said he had worked hard to get the wireless broadband project off the ground but the selling of the bidding documents was behind schedule because of legal problems related to the terms of reference.
TOT president Varut Suvakorn said last Thursday that the bid could be delayed to January because of the longer-than-expected documentation process.
Mr Areepong said the Office of the Attorney General was reviewing the legal issues and had returned some documents to TOT for revisions.
However, the delay would not be long and the contract signing would still be held in February as scheduled.
At the same time, TOT is seeking financing sources, with project details ready to be submitted to major Thai commercial banks within the next two weeks.
An industry source said the bid terms were being revised because of the struggle between two Chinese telecom giants that are long-time competitors for state telecom projects.
Another controversial issue involves a provision under Section 46 of the Frequency Allocation Act, which was passed last month and is now awaiting royal endorsement.
TOT executives are concerned that the existing mobile virtual network operators (MVNO) licensed by TOT could become illegitimate under the new law, which stipulates that licensing frequencies is the exclusive right of the licensee, which must operate the business by itself and may not sub-lease it to others.
The provision needs further interpretation by the Council of State to ensure whether TOT’s licensing of these rights to MVNOs violates the law or not.
TOT’s 3G investment was originally proposed to the cabinet in 2008 with a price tag of about 29 billion baht.
In November 2009, the cabinet instructed it to reduce its investment to 19 billion baht to maintain and expand its 3G network in Bangkok and the surrounding provinces.
TOT’s 3G infrastructure investment is part of the government’s plan for an NGN (next-generation network) under which all existing network infrastructure, including cables and satellites, is combined and interconnected to save on network investments.
TOT rolled out its Phase 1 of 3G service last year with a nationwide 3G expansion project focusing on MVNO business as the core revenue.
But Mr Areepong said he believed the MVNO business model did not violate the law.
Article via Bangkok Post
