NEW DELHI, India—The Thai government on 19 March gave formal approval to the state-owned Telephone Organization of Thailand (TOT) to go ahead with a soft launch of its new GSM 1900 MHz mobile-phone service on 25 March.
An official spokesman told newspersons in Bangkok that although the cabinet is concerned about the project’s return on investment—mainly due to mismanagement of earlier projects by state enterprises—it does not want to create the impression that the government would block the project.
TOT has distributed 5,000 free handsets for testing its service in metropolitan areas, as nationwide coverage is not yet possible and no roaming agreements have been reached with private operators.
Meanwhile, M Link Asia Corporation, a handset dealer, announced its intentions to switch to service provision once the regulatory authority National Telecommunications Commission is in place. M Link also plans to market handsets for TOT and bid for the expansion of the CDMA cellular network of the Communications Authority of Thailand, another government agency. M Link is owned by a member of the Shinawatra family.
