TOT muses plans for Thai Mobile

TOT board member Rathian Srimongkol said last week that management has to determine whether it should enter the 3G mobile broadband business on its own, or with a partner, or outsource the service to a company, says The Nation.

Thai Mobile is a 42:58 joint venture of CAT Telecom and TOT, but both parties have agreed for TOT to acquire all of CAT's shares in the company for Bt2.4 billion (R560 million).

Rathian said the finance ministry, which owns 100% of both state telecom enterprises, gave the nod to TOT's plan to pay for the Thai Mobile shares in 12 annual instalments of Bt200 million (R46.6 million).

Mobile network operators (MNOs) across India and South Asia are reaching out across their respective regions to deliver wireless services where, until now, communities have been without even the most basic forms of telephony, reports Wireless Design & Development Asia.

The technology now exists to enable them to do so, profitably - and rapidly.

At India and South Asia Com in Mumbai, a provider of wireless solutions, Altobridge, will deliver its paper: 'Cost-effective wireless communications in remote parts of India and South Asia'. Company sales director, Colm Jones, will discuss how MNOs can solve the technical, operational and business issues of delivering mobile services to remote, low-population user groups.

The overall performance of the Taiwanese smart cellular device (including smartphones and PDA phones) industry in the first quarter of 2009 was not strong, reports the Taipei-based Market Intelligence & Consulting Institute, according to Cellular-News.

Shipment volume of the Taiwanese smart cellular device industry in the first quarter of 2009 reached 6.72 million units. Only the Apple iPhone 3G, manufactured by Foxconn, experienced strong shipments.

However, starting in May the industry's situation could improve as HTC's Magic and Diamond 2 series, the Palm Pre produced by Foxconn, and the new iPhone series of Apple will be rolled out.