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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Moderated Thread - please read rules before posting

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Jan 16 9:30 AM EST

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To: John Biddle who wrote (32896)	2/26/2003 10:14:11 PM
From: John Biddle	Read Replies (1) of 197271

ICT stalls nationwide CDMA network deal Central provinces to receive Hutch service Komsan Tortermvasana bangkokpost.com As Hutchison officially rolls out its Hutch mobile phone service this week, the future of the nationwide CDMA network it needs to expand remains in doubt. Hutchison was awarded the contract from the Communications Authority of Thailand (CAT) to provide services in Greater Bangkok and 22 central provinces through Hutchison CAT Wireless MultiMedia, a joint venture of Hutchison and CAT. However, CAT's network expansion project, which was won by the Real Time/Nortel consortium, was stalled after Information and Communications Technology Minister Surapong Suebwonglee queried its extraordinarily high bid price of 32.73 billion baht. Real Time, a subsidiary of United Communication Industry Plc, partnered with Nortel Networks to offer the lowest bid price of 32.73 billion baht for the contract to build and lease the network outside of the initial 25 provinces but so far no deal has been signed. Hutch makes its official launch today after introducing the service to the public at the end of last year. The Hutch brand, using the 2.5G CDMA 1X system, offers information, communications and entertainment applications. Dr Surapong said the nationwide CDMA expansion project was too costly when taking into consideration the interest rates the winning bidder was expected to pay for financing. He said the average interest on the financing was at the minimum lending rate plus 2.25 percentage points _ higher than the rate most lenders would charge a contractor operating on such a large scale. He said that because Hutchison was not a new player in the local mobile phone market and was part of a global telecom giant, it should be able to obtain better terms. But he insisted that the CDMA nationwide project must proceed on condition that CAT shouldered the lightest burden. He proposed three options to proceed: the CAT undertakes the project by itself, it undertakes the project through a joint venture and/or operates the network while leasing it from the builder. The leasing option was still being worked out as it lacked clarity, Dr Surapong said, adding that in any case the ministry wanted to see the financing costs reduced. The CAT had proposed to lease the CDMA network for 12 years and allow investors to provide and market the service. However, the CAT also laid down conditions that the service provider must achieve a minimum number of subscribers in each year of the contract or face fines. A CAT source said that Real Time/Nortel had agreed to cut 200 million baht from its price and the CAT had resubmitted the latest price to the ICT minister for consideration.

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