TELECOMMUNICATIONS

CAT Telecom has put off its decision on finalising the amendment of a third-generation (3G) network contract with its concessionaire True Move for another month.

The head of the state enterprise said it needs more time to gather some details for clearer language and prevent a possible legal backlash.

The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) will submit CAT's postponement request to the telecommunications committee next Thursday.

If the committee approves, it means the True-CAT contract amendments will be settled after the 3G auction of 2.1-gigahertz spectrum, scheduled to take place on Oct 16.

The NBTC on June 20 ordered CAT to amend six items in the contract signed in January 2011. CAT needed to report the results to the NBTC by yesterday.

The regulator has said the True-CAT contract violated Section 46 of the Frequency Allocation Act of 2010, which requires licence holders or spectrum owners including CAT to manage spectrum rights on their own.

The NBTC requires the contract to be rewritten to stipulate that CAT has full authority to manage its 850-megahertz spectrum and has full management control of the network operations centre.

Mobile data usage and call detail records must be owned by CAT. The contracts also must clearly state CAT is the sole authority to decide issues such as frequency planning, network rollouts and network operations.

Kittisak Sriprasert, CAT's chief executive, said the state enterprise is still in discussions with True.

"A resolution is expected soon, as we're awaiting some details for making a final decision," he said.

Mr Kittisak specified three options for handling the contract - amending the six items ordered by the NBTC, creating an entirely new contract to replace the existing one or making a new contract attached to the existing one.