Under the plan, TOT aims to wholesale between 70 and 80 per cent of its 60MHz bandwidth in the spectrum to private telecom operators wishing to provide 4G service, said Rungsun Channarukul, senior executive vice president for wireless business. “The total number of subscribers in the first year will be between 5 million and 6 million, rising to 20 million users within five years,” he said.

TOT will soon submit the revised plan for consideration by the telecom committee of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission, as it seeks to defend its right to use all of its 2.3GHz-spectrum bandwidth to offer the 4G service. The regulator’s telecom committee last week asked the state agency to submit an improved 2.3GHz business plan after concluding that the existing plan failed to maximise the use of such a valuable spectrum.

The committee has also threatened to reclaim a large chunk of

 TOT’s 2.3GHz bandwidth for reallocation if the state agency fails to come up with a better business plan.

The telecom panel gave TOT the opportunity to defend its right to use the spectrum by asking it to submit a new plan within three months.

Rungsun explained that TOT had not provided details of potential business on the wholesale basis in the existing business plan that was submitted to the telecom committee, but only details concerning its own planned retail operation, which targets just 100,000 users in the first year.

He said TOT would provide fixed wireless broadband services on the 2.3GHz spectrum by focusing on households nationwide that could not be accessed by fibre-optic network coverage. TOT currently has 1.3 million fixed-broadband-service household subscribers. The state agency won approval from the telecom committee in July last year to use 60MHz of a 64MHz band of the spectrum for fourth-generation wireless service.

TOT is conducting technical tests for the proposed 4G-2.3GHz service along certain Skytrain routes and in Ratchaburi. The TOT board recently approved a plan to seek a partner for new investment on the 60MHz bandwidth by sending invitations to international telecom-equipment suppliers and local telecom operators to propose business plans.

There are two parts to this plan. The first is to invite Huawei, Ericsson and Nokia to submit investment plans and financial terms. The second part is to survey potential demand for 2.3GHz network capacity by the three Thai telecom-service providers: Advanced Info Service (AIS), Total Access Communication (DTAC) and True Group.

TOT is expected to decide on a strategic partner for its 4G-2.3GHz plan by the end of the year. It is in the process of selecting an adviser to seek a suitable partner for the project.

It forecasts a profit of around Bt3 billion a year from the 2.3GHz wholesale-resale business project, starting next year.