Uttama on Monday told the boards of both state telecom agencies to focus solely on these four businesses and submit their new strategies to the commission on July 11.

Both entities have to separately present their plans for establishing joint ventures with private companies.

The TOT board on Tuesday reportedly reversed its previous resolution by asking the state agency to request the Council of State’s re-examination of the legal aspects of the TOT’s plan to sign a deal with Advanced Wireless Network (AWN), a unit of Advanced Info Service (AIS), for the launch of a joint trial commercial service on TOT’s 2.1-gigahertz spectrum.

The TOT board on June 9 had approved TOT going ahead and signing the contract with AWN on the condition that three issues were clarified first.

The first issue was that AWN would have to report to TOT about progress on the joint service, while the second was that TOT had to urge AWN to agree to lease 2G-900MHz network equipment under the TOT concession.

The other issue was that TOT would also have to urge AWN to agree to lease the 13,000 telecom towers currently subject to a dispute between the state agency and AIS over their ownership.

The planned joint trial service will last six months, after which they will sign other contracts as part of their partnership to provide third-generation cellular service on TOT’s 2.1GHz band.

Meanwhile, CAT’s board met yesterday to consider the plan to upgrade its idle 20MHz bandwidth on the 1800MHz spectrum to provide 4G service under a planned partnership with Total Access Communication (DTAC).