(Bangkok Post via NewsEdge) CAT Telecom is preparing to abandon CDMA technology for its money-losing mobile-phone service and migrate to the GSM system that is in more widespread use throughout the world.
The state telecom enterprise has held talks with cellular partner Hutchison and with the two operators holding CAT concessions, DTAC and True Move, and all agreed that switching to GSM was the right idea, said a senior CAT executive who asked not to be named.
CAT provides the Hutch CDMA service in 25 central provinces including Bangkok in a joint venture with Hutchison under CAT Wireless Multimedia.
However, the Hutch service has managed to attract only about 700,000 customers in a mobile market of 54 million.
Huawei Technology last year completed a 7.2-billion-baht ($228 million) expansion of the CDMA system to allow CAT to offer nationwide coverage, but the Chinese firm is locked in a dispute with CAT over fines for late delivery of the system.
The expanded network infrastructure would not go to waste because it can be adapted to the GSM platform.
The executive said CAT had concluded that continuing to use CDMA technology would lead to mounting losses because most of the world had now shifted to GSM technology, although CDMA is still popular in the United States and Japan.
'Continuing service on CDMA will lead to a deadlock and we also will miss the technology advancement bandwagon,' he said.
© 2008 Bangkok Post
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