Two Contenders Have Best Chance for Thailand Mobile Phone Expansion
FRIDAY JULY 26 12:00AM
BANGKOK POST, THAILAND
COPYRIGHT 2002 KNIGHT RIDDER/TRIBUNE BUSINESS NEWS
COPYRIGHT 2002 BANGKOK POST, THAILAND
Only two of the four bidders for the 15-billion baht mobile phone expansion
project of the Communications Authority of Thailand are expected to have a
reasonable chance to win, according to industry sources.
The two front-runners are United Communications Industry Plc and M Link Asia.
Ucom is the parent company of Total Access Communication, operator of the
DTAC service. One of the major shareholders in recently listed M Link Asia is
Monthatip Kowitchareonkul, a sister of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who
earlier declared that CDMA technology had no future. M Link Asia is a leading
mobile phone distributor.
The CAT wants to expand its Code-Division-Multiple-Access (CDMA) cellular
services to the provinces, even though it has met with a very small response in
Bangkok.
An industry executive said it was still not even certain whether the CDMA
expansion would go ahead, but the two main contenders were definitely
interested in running the service.
Ucom signalled its interest by teaming up with three equipment suppliers to
submit a bid through its subsidiary, Real Time. The suppliers are Motorola, Nortel
Networks and Samsung.
The terms of the bid require each bidder to identify prospective network
constructors, while the lead bidder -- Real Time in Ucom's case -- would be the
marketer.
By naming three prospective constructors, Ucom had given the CAT bid
committee a broader choice, said a committee source who asked not to be
named. "But the bid committee will have to spend longer reviewing Ucom's
proposals."
M Link, meanwhile, has proposed Ericsson as its network builder. The other
contenders are Acumen with ZTE Corp, and EPC with Lucent Technologies.
Sources said Ucom did not let its network constructors know that it had named
more than one prospective partner.
Nortel Thailand executives said they only learned that they were in the same
group with Samsung and Motorola after Ucom submitted its bid. "But we didn't
mind because Nortel and Motorola equipment is compatible. Hutchison is
currently installing both our equipment and Motorola's in the CDMA 2000 1x
system in Bangkok," one said.
A source in the Real Time group said Ucom definitely wanted to be involved in a
nationwide CDMA venture even though it already operated a GSM 1800 service
through DTAC. One reason, he said, was that the nationwide network coverage of
DTAC and rival Advanced Info Service was still not 100 percent.
Another consideration is that expanding the GSM 1800 network costs four times
more than for the 800 and 900-Megahertz systems. As a result, it was not
unusual for operators in many countries to have two systems and two
technologies, he said.
The bid committee source said the technical proposals of Motorola, Nortel, Lucent
and Ericsson were likely to pose no problems, since Hutchison had named these
suppliers when it submitted its bid for the CDMA system in Bangkok.
"Samsung could also pass our technical screening, but we are not sure about the
Chinese supplier ZTE," he said. ZTE is linked with Acumen, a subsidiary of
Jasmine International, founded by Adisai Bodharamik who is currently the
commerce minister.
The source said the bid committee would likely take until the end of August to
review all four groups' bids, before asking them to import equipment for tests.
Those that pass the 90-day tests will be invited to submit financial proposals,
with a final winner expected to be declared by the end of this year.
The source said the CAT expected the best financial proposal to come from M
Link, which has Mitsui Bank as a backer.
wirelessweek.com |
