Thailand-Based Telephone Companies Reject Request for Roaming by Rival.

Byline: Kanchana Pleumjit

Aug. 6--Total Access Communication and Advanced Info Service have rejected a request by CP Orange, the new mobile-phone arm of the Charoen Pokphand Group, for network roaming, saying that they will keep their limited capacity for their own customers.

TAC deputy managing director Pitayaphol Chantanasaro said TAC decided to decline CP Orange's request after negotiations. He declined to give a reason or state whether other areas of co-operation are possible. But he made clear that co-operation will not be in commercial areas.

Another source at TAC said that a major reason for rejecting CP Orange's request was that TAC is expanding its network to cope with the continual growth of its customer base.

"Therefore we don't have any capacity left for CP Orange customers to roam our network," he said.

As CP Orange is a rival of TAC, it would be inconvenient to share the network. "Besides, we believe CP Orange has enough money to build its own network," he said.

AIS vice-president Vichien Mektrakarn said AIS had no room for CP Orange to roam. AIS has a capacity of between 2.8 million and 2.9 million connections and its service is almost fully subscribed.