TeleGeography | January 18, 2011 | Thailand
The board of Thai state-owned CAT Telecom’s board has approved a plan to partner private sector cellco True Move to provide 3G mobile services based on W-CDMA/HSPA technology, Dow Jones Newswires reported yesterday. The move follows True’s agreement in December to take over Hutchison Telecommunications International’s Thai assets including a majority stake in CDMA2000-based Hutchison CAT Wireless Multimedia (Hutch), a joint venture with CAT providing 2G and 3G services in Bangkok and central provinces of the country. The board of CAT, which operates its own CDMA2000 1xEV-DO network across the rest of the country under the CAT CDMA name, on Friday agreed that it will terminate its marketing contract with Hutch and will sign a new 14-year contract with True to provide both 2G and 3G services, CAT president Jirayut Rungsrithong said. Under the contract, expected to be signed by the end of this month, True will replace CDMA infrastructure with W-CDMA/HSPA [dependent on permission from the state-owned operator] and in return will rent the mobile network from CAT whilst technically operating as a mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) [via subsidiary Real Move], Jirayut said.
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