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State enterprise National Telecom (NT) has developed strategies to ensure sustainable revenue as its spectrum rights to use the 850 megahertz, 2100MHz, and 2300MHz ranges are set to expire in August 2025. These rights currently contribute around 50 billion baht in annual revenue and 10 billion baht in net profit.

To mitigate the impact of the expiration, NT plans to downsize its workforce from 14,000 to 7,000 employees by 2027. Additionally, they aim to accelerate the network rollout on the 700MHz and 26GHz ranges to generate additional revenue streams. NT also plans to split its profitable business units into new companies to drive S-curve growth.

The 700MHz and 26GHz ranges are seen as key frequencies for NT’s future revenue generation once the rights to the 850MHz, 2100MHz, and 2300MHz ranges end in 2025.

NT is a merger of TOT and CAT Telecom. The company has partnerships with Advanced Info Service (AIS) on TOT’s 2100MHz range, Total Access Communication on TOT’s 2300MHz range, and True Move H Universal Communication (TUC) on CAT’s 850MHz range.

After 2025, NT will only retain its telecom assets, specifically telecom towers and operations through the 700MHz and 26GHz ranges, which were won through a license auction held by the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) in January 2020.

The development of NT’s 700MHz business has been approved by the cabinet with a total budget of 61 billion baht over 14 years. NT’s partnership deal with AIS on the 700MHz spectrum has also been approved by the telecom regulator’s subcommittees. Under the deal, AIS will purchase and operate half of NT’s 700MHz spectrum capacity, while NT will pay a rental fee to AIS for utilizing the remaining 10MHz bandwidth for its 5G services.

NT’s 700MHz spectrum is expected to be commercially launched in the fourth quarter of this year. The NT board has also approved the first phase of investment for the 26GHz project, with network installation expected to be completed by March 2024.

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