How does this company make money?
Most revenue comes from monthly fees paid by postpaid subscribers — individuals and businesses on regular contracts. Prepaid top-up cards sold through 7-Eleven stores and independent retailers across Thailand bring in additional income. Subscribers who use more data than their monthly plan allows are charged per megabyte for the excess. Finally, when a call from a dtac or True Corporation customer ends on this company's network, those operators pay an interconnection fee for the privilege.
What makes this company hard to replace?
Business customers on enterprise contracts face months-long procurement processes governed by Thai government tender rules before a switch can happen. Under NBTC regulations, mobile numbers cannot be moved to another network immediately — there is a mandatory 30-day notice period. Companies that use integrated billing systems tied to True Digital Park or CP Group subsidiaries face the added hassle of unwinding those connected services before they can move.
What limits this company?
Every cell tower can only handle so many users before the signal degrades for everyone sharing it. In the northern and western mountain provinces, the terrain already forces the company to build more towers per square kilometre just to maintain basic coverage. That means money spent expanding in those areas buys less total capacity than the same money spent on the flat central plains — there is no shortcut that makes rural network-building cheaper or faster.
What does this company depend on?
The company cannot operate without spectrum licences from the NBTC. Its towers and radios run on equipment supplied by Huawei and Ericsson. The connection between towers and the wider internet travels over fiber optic cables leased from TOT Public Company Limited. Remote towers rely on diesel fuel to keep backup generators running when the grid fails. And calls that cross onto other networks depend on interconnection agreements with dtac and True Corporation.
Who depends on this company?
Thai government agencies use the network for emergency communications during floods and other natural disasters — if the network goes down, those coordination channels go with it. Millions of Thai users of LINE and Facebook lose mobile data access. Customers of Bangkok Bank and Kasikornbank cannot reach mobile banking in areas where no other network covers them. CP Group's thousands of 7-Eleven stores lose the point-of-sale connections they need to process transactions.
How does this company scale?
Adding more subscribers to towers that are already built costs very little — the infrastructure is already there and the signal is already being broadcast. What does not get cheaper with growth is building new towers in rural provinces: each new site still requires local land negotiations, community agreements, permits, and physical construction that cannot be sped up by spending more money.
What external forces can significantly affect this company?
When the Thai baht weakens against the US dollar, imported equipment from Huawei, Ericsson, and other foreign suppliers costs more in local currency terms. Thailand's population is aging, which slows down the number of new mobile subscribers coming into the market while pushing demand toward simpler, lower-cost plans. And ASEAN-level agreements on telecommunications could eventually allow foreign operators to enter Thailand through local partnerships or acquisitions, bringing new competition.
Where is this company structurally vulnerable?
If the NBTC chose not to renew or decided to reallocate the 900MHz licence, the physics of radio propagation would immediately work against the company. Covering the same remote mountain areas using only 1800MHz or 2100MHz would require building proportionally more towers — a construction programme lasting years, at a cost that the relatively small number of rural subscribers may never repay. The rural coverage advantage that no competitor has yet matched would effectively disappear.
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