CAT Telecom will set up a committee to seek ways to end the legal dispute between the state agency and China's telecom-equipment supplier Huawei Technologies relating to CAT's Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) 2000 1-x cellular network.
There is also a report that early this month the Chinese embassy in Thailand wrote to the Information and Communications Technology Ministry, urging it to seek a solution to the problem.
Krisda Kaweeyarn, chairman of the CAT executive committee, yesterday said his committee would propose for board approval today the establishment of a dispute-settlement panel, which would coordinate with Huawei on the matter.
He said both parties might have to agree to take a step back from their current stand-off in order to solve the problem.
In 2005, Huawei quoted Bt7.2 billion to win a contract from CAT to provide 1,600 base stations for the CDMA network to the state agency.
The project was divided into two phases, each featuring the supply of 800 base stations and eventually covering 51 provinces.
CAT, however, alleges that Huawei was late in delivering the second-phase network equipment.
Huawei has claimed the problem stemmed from different interpretations of the contract, which it said required it to deliver the second phase by January 2007, while the accompanying Evolution Data/Voice (EV-DV) high-speed data transmission system would be completely installed the following year.
But CAT reads the contract to mean the entire network, including software, had to be delivered by January 2007.
Huawei eventually installed the Evolution-Data Optimised (EV-DO) Release A system for CAT instead.
In December 2007, Huawei requested the Central Administrative Court to order CAT to pay the second instalment due on February 2007 of 25 per cent of the CDMA project value of Bt7.2 billion. The state enterprise had paid the first 25-per-cent instalment in 2006.
In January 2008, CAT took Huawei to the Central Administrative Court over alleged late delivery of the cellular network.
CAT has pinned its hopes on CDMA service being its flagship amid fiercer competition from private mobile-phone operators in its existing main business of overseas call service.
Hutchison-CAT Wireless Multimedia, a joint venture between CAT and Hong Kong telecom giant Hutchison Telecom, has provided cellular service on a separate CDMA network in 25 provinces. Hutchison-CAT has leased the network from BFKT, which is wholly owned by Hutchison Telecom, to provide the service.
The state agency is in talks with Hutchison Telecom on the plan to take over the BFKT network and merge it with its network in 51 provinces, in order to strengthen its cellular-service marketing.
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