Thailand: TOT to be sole operator of home phones

• Feb 27, 2017

TOT Plc will completely take over all operations of both provincial and Bangkok fixed-line telephone services from October this year with the expiry of the TT&T and True Corporation concessions.
The state telecom enterprise, however, has already started controlling operations of the provincial fixed-line phone services, taking over from its concessionaire TT&T after the Central Bankruptcy Court in March 2016 ordered the confiscation of TT&T home phone infrastructure assets.
True Corporation, which provides fixed-line telephone services for Bangkok and metropolitan areas, is under a 25-year concession, which is due to expire on Oct 26 this year. True has 1.3 million fixed-line subscribers.
The Central Bankruptcy court last November also ordered TOT to take responsibility for two jobs: repairing or replacing transmission equipment, including dropped wires, and maintaining TT&T’s transmission system to ensure service continuity after the concession expires.
TOT president Monchai Noosong said the state telecom enterprise already began taking over operations and services involving back office, maintenance, billing and call centres.
Up to 95% of TT&T’s assets had been transferred to TOT under the build-transfer-operate concession contract. The asset transfer for the remainder is expected to be completed this month.
Mr Monchai said the court recently ruled that TOT has the right to fully benefit from TT&T’s assets and revenue from the latter’s existing 350,000 provincial fixed-line subscribers, almost two years before the concession ends. TOT could earn monthly service revenue of 90 million baht from TT&T 300,000 subscribers.
TT&T provides fixed-line provincial telephone services under a 25-year concession, which is due to expire in October 2018. The company has to pay TOT 43% of its total revenue under a revenue-sharing agreement. TOT has allocated TT&T 1.5 million phone numbers to operate.
Mr Monchai also said TOT plans to spend 400 million baht this year on repairing fixed-line networks nationwide. The state enterprise has yet to set aside a budget for marketing to promote its home telephone service. TOT now has 3.4 million fixed-line subscribers on its own network.
“We will become the sole fixed-line service provider in Thailand once True’s concession expires in October, with a combined 4.7 million fixed-line subscribers,” said Mr Mochai.
Mr Monchai acknowledged that the total number of fixed telephone lines in service continue to trend downward, and users tend to disconnect fixed lines.
“In order to survive, we are figuring out what kinds of attractive services can add to the traditional home telephone service,” he said.

Source: http://www.bangkokpost.com/business/telecom/1205501/tot-to-be-sole-operator-of-home-phones