CAT to review contract terms as network partners struggle

Recently some of CAT’s MVNO partners asked the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission to help them seek new contract conditions from CAT. Some have even considered pulling out of the business, claiming that they cannot afford the network-rental fees charged by CAT. 
MVNOs lease the networks of major telecom operators to provide cellular services. Recently one of CAT’s MVNO partners, Samart i-Mobile, complained to the NBTC about what the company deemed unfair price competition from CAT’s own MY third-generation cellular service. The company said this competition had affected all of CAT’s MVNOs partners. Samart i-Mobile president Sukanya Vanichjakvong said the company would start talks today with CAT on possible new terms and conditions for its MVNO contract.
Sanpachai said CAT was aware of the problems the MVNOs were facing, and would cancel a package that had offered its own subscribers unlimited data usage for only Bt139 per month. The cancellation is aimed at helping its MVNO partners survive the competition from CAT itself.
CAT has wholesaled a big part of the bandwidth it holds on the 850-megahertz spectrum to MVNOs while using the remaining bandwidth to offer its own 3G service under the MY brand. Sanpachai said CAT had explained to the NBTC that it had positioned MY as a basic service and did not want to launch aggressive packages to compete with its own MVNOs. 
“We want all of the MVNOs to survive,” he said.
He said CAT’s three most active MVNOs had around 100,000 subscribers in total. They are White Space Co, which is well known for its Penguin SIM brand; Myworld3G of Data CDMA Co; and Samart i-Mobile, which is known for its Open brand. 
All of CAT’s MVNO contracts are in effect until 2025. They will face a penalty if they terminate the contracts early.
NBTC deputy secretary-general Korkij Danchaivichit said Samart i-Mobile had returned 300,000 of its 500,000 mobile-phone numbers to the commission, citing the tough competition from MY. “The NBTC has tried to help all MVNOs survive the tough competition,” he said. 
Samart i-Mobile has two MVNO licences, one operated by Samart i-Mobile Plus under a partnership with TOT and the other by itself under the CAT partnership. Samart i-Mobile Plus currently has around 10,000 users, while Samart i-Mobile has around 40,000. MY has 1.67 million users, of whom 1.54 million are prepaid. It expects to have 2 million subscribers by end of this year and Bt1.85 billion in revenue, up 50 per cent from last year.