Australia
Telecom New Zealand said it intends to make a takeover offer for the approximately 18 percent of shares in Australian operator AAPT that it does not already own for A$444 million (US$258 million). The company said it will offer minority shareholders A$7.25 (US$4.23) in cash for each AAPT share.
Bangladesh
Bangladesh Telegraph and Telephone Board (BTTB) plans to launch PHS services in Dhaka early next year. An investment of 8 billion taka (US$157 million) will be made in the new service, which will have a network of 200,000 PHS phones in the national capital. The project will be implemented jointly by the government-controlled utility and a consortium of Japanese companies.
Japan
Kansai Electric Power, a utility company based in Osaka, reportedly decided to liquidate Astel Kansai, an ailing PHS operator under the utility firm, as early as October.
K Opticom, an optical fiber leasing service business in Osaka, will take over Astel Kansai.
DDI will take over three Tu-Ka companies as soon as Tu-Ka Phone Kansai, a Tu-Ka firm based on Osaka, successfully is in the black. These three Tu-Ka Phone companies will continue to provide their cellular services based on PDC, the Japanese standard.
Laos
Lao Telecommunications Co. (LTC) has invested US$2 million to expand its GSM 900 network to cover the six southern-most provinces of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic. LTC currently has 12,000 GSM 900 subscribers nationwide. LTC signed a contract with Shin Satellite Public Co. to provide a backbone system using Thaicom satellites to connect Vientiane with five provinces.
Malaysia
The Malaysia government did away with fixed mobile phone access fees under the Automatic Telephone Using Radio Regulations 1986 law, beginning 1 August. Cell-phone operators are now free to set prices as they see fit.
Under the regulations, the monthly access fee for subscribers was 60 Malaysian ringgit (US$16).
Thailand
The Thai government has incorporated its new mobile company called ACT Mobile Co. It will have initial registered capital of about 1.2 billion baht (US$29.3 million). The Communications Ministry is speeding up its 1900 MHz mobile-phone project in hopes of a commercial launch by February 2001. Equipment might be installed on the existing CDMA network of the Communications Authority of Thailand (CAT) in the Bangkok area to shorten the installation period from 11 months to eight months. Both GSM and CDMA are expected to be used in the new project. The CAT has invited nine suppliers to make presentations.
