The MoU will see AIS starting |a non-commercial trial service |on 15MHz of the spectrum. AIS |has informed the National Broadcasting and Telecom-munications Commission about this plan.

The MoU is expected to be signed soon. Earlier, AIS chief executive officer Somchai Lertsuthiwong said the company expected to sign it this month.

AIS is seeking more spectrum bandwidth to serve its 40 million subscribers after failing to win an NBTC licence to the 900-megahertz spectrum last December. Currently it has licences to 15MHz of the 1,800MHz spectrum and 15MHz on 2.1GHz.

TOT is expected to gain revenue of around Bt10 billion a year from this 10-year partnership with AIS.

A TOT source said the MoU was just for the trial service and there was no payment requirement for the spectrum use.

After this MoU is signed, AIS and TOT will sign five contracts, beginning with the AIS commercial trial service on TOT’s 2.1GHz, which is scheduled to be signed within 30 days of the first MoU.

The second one is a contract between AIS subsidiary Advanced Wireless Network (AWN) and TOT to expand TOT’s 2.1GHz network coverage.

AWN will invest in this network expansion and lease it to TOT to provide wireless service.

The third contract is for TOT’s wholesaling of 80 per cent of the bandwidth of this new network built by AWN to AWN.

TOT is expected to gain revenue of around Bt3.9 billion a year from wholesaling the bandwidth to AWN.

Under the fourth contract, AWN will lease 13,000 telecom towers from TOT.

The towers were built during AIS’s concession contract with TOT, which has since expired.

The TOT source claimed that AIS had agreed to transfer all these towers to TOT after signing a contract to lease them from TOT.

TOT will get around Bt3.6 billion a year from this leasing deal.

The signing of the second to fourth contracts will take place within 60 days after the singing of the first contract.

Under the fifth, AWN will lease all of its 900MHz network equipment from TOT, which is expected to gain revenue of Bt2 billion a year from this deal.

The Office of the Attorney-General is still examining these |five contracts. TOT needs the approval of its board before it can sign them.