State urged to tackle severe problems at National Telecom

The government needs to address a long list of problems at state enterprise National Telecom (NT), including those related to its 700-megahertz service, says an official in the Digital Economy and Society (DES) Ministry who requested anonymity.
The source said these problems are “ticking time bombs” for the ministry and the government.
The critical problem is its investment in the 700MHz licence. Another issue is that NT’s annual revenue of 15 billion baht from partnership deals with three private telecom operators dries up in August 2025.
The source said a third problem was disunity in the organisation because of a clash of cultures and management attitudes between TOT and CAT Telecom, which merged to become NT in 2021.
CAT clinched the 700MHz spectrum totalling 20MHz in bandwidth by bidding 34.3 billion baht in the 2020 auction. The price is double that paid by the private telecom operators in the previous auction of the 700MHz range, compared on a basis of the same amount of spectrum bandwidth.
NT’s 700MHz mobile phone service has yet to start acquiring new subscribers, though NT has already paid the licence fee for three billing cycles to the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC).
NT has also paid more than 1 billion baht in the past six months as roaming fees to the private mobile operators. The roaming expense stems from its gradual switching off of its service on its other three spectrum bands to migrate its customers to the 700MHz band before licensing for its other three bands expires in 2025.
As many of NT’s mobile customers use devices incompatible with the 700MHz band, they roam using the spectrum bands of private operators. As a result, NT pays the roaming fee.
CAT joined the 700MHz licence bid during the stint of former DES minister Buddhipongse Punnakanta in the previous government.
NT board chairman Nattapon Nattasomboon earlier told the Bangkok Post that NT’s management has yet to have a clear plan for 700MHz to attract new subscribers as it is solely focusing on migrating the existing 700,000 active customers from its three other bands to the 700MHz network.
Mr Nattapon said NT has migrated around 5,000 customers daily to the 700MHz network.
NT has a total of 1.5 million subscribers in all its spectrum bands, of which only 700,000 are active. The average revenue per user of NT’s mobile phone business is around 100 baht monthly.
NT’s 700MHz service is divided into two parts. One is the part totalling the 10MHz bandwidth it will operate on its own.
NT has transferred the other part of the 10 MHz bandwidth to Advanced Wireless Network (AWN), a subsidiary of Advanced Info Service (AIS).
Recently, NT and AIS entered into telecom equipment rental agreements on NT’s 700 MHz spectrum and nationwide roaming, which aim to enhance and expand the 4G/5G capabilities of both companies.
NT, through TOT, has also partnered with AIS on offering a mobile phone service on TOT’s 2100 MHz. It has also partnered with the now defunct Total Access Communication on TOT’s 2300MHz.
NT, through CAT, has partnered with True Move H Universal Communication on CAT’s 850MHz.
The state enterprise’s right to use those three spectrum ranges expires together in 2025.
Mr Nattapon said that the expiry of these three partnership contracts will end NT’s annual revenue stream of 15 billion baht, the amount it has earned for a decade.
NT is now led by president Colonel Sanphachai Huvanandana, who is a former CAT president. It has addressed redundancy of management after the TOT-CAT merger by reducing the number of senior executive vice-presidents from 20 in 2022 to 16 last year and 12 on Oct 1, 2024.
It will also reduce the number of its employees through early retirement programmes from 14,000 to 7,000 in the next few years.
The source in the DES Ministry said there is disunity among former executives of TOT and CAT in NT, due to their different organisational culture and management mindsets.
In January 2023, NT gained the right to use the 126°E orbital slot in the auction. However, NT does not yet have any plan to launch a satellite into orbit. The state enterprise will have to send a satellite into orbit in the next three years, according to the auction’s conditions.
NT will seek partners to help operate the satellite service in orbit.
“It is hard for NT to launch a satellite into orbit unless it can get collaboration with the strong partners,” said Mr Nattapon.
He said the company’s feasibility study for the orbit auction shows that NT will have an advantage from the satellite business on the 126°E orbit, if the government tells state agencies to use the broadband service from such a slot.
The challenge is how to make those agencies use or rent NT’s satellite service on the orbital slot, unless they are directly assigned or ordered to do so by the government, Mr Nattapon said.
NT aims to have its cloud service contribute 10 billion baht in revenue annually by 2027, from the current 4 billion baht, thanks to rising service demand.
Col Sanphachai said NT’s existing cloud service and the two new data centres planned are expected to become its new major revenue sources.
NT provides the cloud service on the basis of infrastructure-as-a service. It is expected to raise the service capacity from the current 50,000 virtual machines (VMs) to 150,000 VMs within the next three years. One VM contributes 3,500 baht per month of revenue to NT.
He added that NT is in the process of forming a joint venture with a cloud service provider to develop the service at layers of software-as-a-service and platform-as-a-service. These higher layers can boost its cloud service revenue by 1.5 times.
The two new data centres planned will have foreign partners. The complete development of the two new data centres may take almost two years.
“Four foreign companies are keen to join us in the projects of the two new data centres,” Col Sanphachai said.