IEC is looking to sell its Thai MVNO IEC3G.

International Engineering Company PCL (IEC) is looking to offload its MVNO business, and is inviting interested parties to bid for the company’s Mobile Network Operator, IEC3G.

In a bid to strengthening their portfolio, IEC is looking to invite interested parties to acquire IEC’s Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) “IEC3G”, including the license and the current subscribers. Optional offers could include database, servers, call-center and billing-system.

IEC3G is a MVNO running under IEC Technology Co., Ltd. (IECT), a subsidiary of IEC. The MVNO has been granted a Type 1 Telecom License (without own network), by the NBTC and operates on TOT3G 2100 MHz – the network of TOT Public Company Limited.

In 2010 the company was approved by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) to conduct Non Facilities Based MVNO -Thin MVNO, and IEC3G was one of the initial first five MVNO’s to be granted a MVNO license in Thailand.

The initial goal for the MVNO was 300,000 3G subscribers during the first six months of operation. The company reportedly spent THB 50 million (U$1,560,000) on service development.

In 2010 the company informed that, due to only 548 Base-station and thus low network coverage in Bangkok and vicinities including low signal quality in buildings, IEC3G was unable to achieve its marketing objectives. Despite, they did however manage to collect over 30,000 subscribers in 2010.

At the end of 2012 the company informed that IEC3G would be unsuccessful to achieve as planned due to the circumstance of limited area coverage as TOT3G continued to struggle expanding its nationwide coverage and put off indoor blind spots, resulting in approximate 8,000 active subscriber for IEC3G.

As of September 2013 the MVNO has 7500+ active subscribers.IEC's invitation to invest in its 3G MVNO (PDF)