They've got the power

       The Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat) firmly announced plans to build two nuclear plants, with construction of the first to begin in 11 years; deputy governor and spokesman Wirat Kanchanaphaibul said studies were still under way, but two 1,000KW plants will replace or supplement some of the gas-fired plants,in order to decrease dependence on foreign oil sources; getting permission to build the plants will be child's play compared with the coming fight over where they will (not) be sited.
       Top countries in Global Information Technology as ranked over the past year by the World Economic Forum were Denmark, Sweden and the United States, with Singapore in fourth place as the only Asian country to make the top 10; the annual report, which trashed this country, is sponsored for the first time by Cisco Systems, and by a huge coincidence adopted the theme "Mobility in a Networked World," not that a huge company would bias the report in any manner to show up countries using its technology, perish the thought;actually, Thailand's rank of Number 47 in the world with a score of 4.14 came even though Thailand is a major customer of Cisco's spiffy and extremely profitable censorship hardware; indeed,as the report put it so very diplomatically:"Pursuing its downward slide in the ranking, Thailand plunges a further seven positions to 47th. Behind this negative trend is the continuous worsening of the country's performance in all the government-related indicators;"how heartening, then, that the new government has taken such a strong interest in IT, even convincing the incredible Ranongruk Suwanchawee to serve selflessly as information and communications technology minister, a step certain to be reflected in next year's rankings.
       The National Telecommunications Commission continued its frantic twoyear-old project to get ready to prepare to start to consider how to begin setting up Asia's last third-generation mobile phone system; chairman Gen Choochart Promprasit said regulations governing the auction of bandwidth should be published by next month - or so; the auction should take place Real Soon Now, comparatively speaking; before any 3G service actually begin, there may be lawsuits challenging the NTC power-grab to regulate 3G at all.
       Peter Borjesson, president of vice of network services for Ericsson Thailand ,said his company would exist to serve 3G operators, in case there ever are any; the optimistic Mr Borjesson figures there might be an opportunity in the 3G market in 2010; Ericsson has had lots of time to get lots of experience in 3G, since service has already started in Cambodia, Laos, etc. New CEO Wichien Mektrakarn of No 1 yuppiephone network Advanced Info Service said he was thrilled to death to be able to work with your TOT on 3G services - assuming TOT ever manages to get that ball rolling; in the meantime, however,AIS is working on hiving off its service to its subsidiary Advance Wireless Network , and that could - repeat, could - take concession business from TOT.
       Your CAT Telecom said it will try to talk state-run broadcaster MCOT ("Emcot") into donating its 2.6GHz spectrum for a WiMax service for yuppiephones;your brand new spiffy CEO Jirayuth Rungsrithong of Cattelecom said he also wants to finish the hookup between Hutchison-CAT and the up-country 20001-x networks, to created one flawless, CDMA phone network which would remain as the fourth-largest service.
       Web pirates figured out that the Thai foreign ministry bought and maintained (14thAseanSummit.org) for last February's Asean summit; so they went out and bought the domain name (15thAseanSummit.org); you can currently "find Thai girls" and "date gorgeous Filipinas" from the site; there is no official word yet on the actual website to be used for the 15th Summit in Hua Hin and Cha-Am in October.
       Information and Communication Technology Minister Ranongruk Suwunchwee told the company formerly known as Shinawatra Satellite to go pound sand when the firm asked to rent a satellite instead of build a new one;Mrs Ranongruk took a few moments from her frantic ministerial schedule to tell Thaicom , now based in Shingapore, that it could not amend the 1997 contract with her ministry; back in the last century, Shinsat and the government agreed that when the Thaicom 1 satellite fell out of the sky - which it soon will - Thaksin's firm would build a replacement; now, Thaicom wants to rent a foreign satellite to carry the phone calls and TV signals, and then build two satellites later;"The concession contract cannot be amended because it was signed more than 12 years ago,"said the minister.
       The aggressive electronics services sub-contractor Stars Microelectronics said it was budgeting for corporate growth of between 25 and 30 percent in the second half of this year, because the recovery is that good; by coincidence,the company is also launching an initial public offering this month, and CEO Polsak Lertputipinyo said he expects somewhere around 4.75, maybe 4.95 baht for each of the 92 million shares on offer.
       Virtual computing specialists NComputing of America and Thailand said it was upbeat about the Thai operations;Manish Sharma, president for vice sales in the Pacific area, said the sales targets of the virtual machines - including hardware and software - were 25,000 in Thailand this year, and 50,000 next year; the company already has major customers including Coca Cola, Tesco Lotus and Big C.