TRUE CORP and CAT Telecom have reached an agreement for the state enterprise to lease its 2G cellular network to True.
Sanphachai Huvanandana, chief executive officer of CAT, said last Friday that True would initially lease 5,000 base stations for Bt35 million a month. The lease term is openended, but True would have to inform CAT three months in advance if it wants to cancel the arrangement.
True had proposed a lease of four years for Bt700 million in total, but CAT preferred a total of Bt1.6 billionBt2 billion. True will also lease CAT's in-building 2G network, but they have yet to decide on the rent. The True group still has more than 1 million 2G subscribers, but plans to stop serving them in 12 months.
True's subsidiary True Move H Universal Communication (TUC)won a 1800MHz licence in last month's auction. Initially TUC will use a 10MHz band from the 1800MHz spectrum for 4G and the rest for 2G. After 12 months, it will use a combined 15MHz from 1800 MHz and 15MHz from 2.1GHz to provide 4G.
TrueMove, another mobile phone subsidiary, shut down its 2G service at midnight last Thursday and the regulator reclaimed its 16 million mobile phone numbers for reallocation. TrueMove's concession from CAT expired in September 2013 but the regulator permitted it to continue serving customers until the 1800MHz licence auction was completed. CAT and True are still in talks over which owns TrueMove's 8,031 telecom towers after the concession.
True has proposed solving the dispute by putting the towers into its infrastructure fund.