Thailand freezes OneWeb agreement
June 27, 2024
By Chris Forrester
Eutelsat’s OneWeb division had an agreement in place with Thailand’s National Telecom (NT) but the state telecom business has put a hold on the agreement for at least 30 days, and perhaps longer.
NT’s executive board suspended the deal in order that its legal sub-committee can examine the contract’s terms and conditions and in the words of the announcement to “evaluate the benefits within the contract”.
NT’s legal sub-committee could decide whether to refer the agreement to the country’s Office of the Attorney General for it to undertake a legal review with regard to a foreign entity and its role in the nation’s security. Moreover, because the contract is with a foreign entity a further examination might be needed.
The original master service agreement was in effect since June 1st 2023, and struck between Network Access Associates (NAA), the juristic person of OneWeb registered in the UK, and NT. The agreement was executed by Srikanth Balachandran, director of NAA, and Sorapong Siripan, senior EVP of NT.
The Bangkok Post alleges that NT is concerned that several conditions within the agreement and unfair and “might not be legal”
NT provides gateway and facility services for OneWeb’s Low Earth Orbiting (LEO) satellites in Thailand and Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam (CLMV).
However, there’s a further complication in that the main distributor of OneWeb’s activity over Thailand is mu Space and Advanced Technology (Mu Space). “The question is why Mu Space is taking the role as the main distributor of OneWeb’s LEO service, while NT has a smaller role despite the service being operated via NT’s gateway and landing rights,” said the source to The Bangkok Post.