Vincent Paul Duda, the 37-year-old chief of Alcatel's local operations, is deepening his love affair with Thailand. He not only has huge plans for his company and himself, but also for the Kingdom.

Duda, who is building his dream house on Koh Samui, is planning to take a Thai name and is also applying for citizenship. And he envisions his French company "developing broadband for all Thai people".

Duda's affair with Thailand began when he was 21, and he spent his first night here at the Oriental in Bangkok.

His talent for sales was spotted by a French firm even when he was studying in college, and he was assigned to sell the company's products in several Asian countries during a three-week trip.

The fully sponsored trip included Thailand, where he enjoyed the luxury of the Oriental.

Reflecting on that journey to Asia, Duda says: "I was 21 years old. I went to Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore, China and Taiwan, all in three weeks. That's a hectic and long trip, and it was my first time out of Europe. And the best place was Thailand."

After graduation, Duda worked for a while with a French association and later, when he had a chance to work at the French embassy, where did he choose to go to? Bangkok, of course.

Duda says he liked the work at the embassy but the condition was that after one and a half years in Bangkok, he had to move on to other countries.

"The embassy job was good but it had a fixed term of one and a half years. And I didn't want to go back to France," says Duda.

It proved to be a turning point in his career.

Duda met the then boss at Alcatel (Thailand) and was absorbed as sales manager.

During his 12 years with the company, Duda has mostly been involved in sales and marketing. He has been instrumental in many of Alcatel's successful projects, including the recent turnkey GSM project with True, the ThaiCom5 satellite with Shin Satellite and the Transmission Network Expansion Project with TOT.

Last month, just over a month after the September 19 coup, Duda took over as managing director of Alcatel (Thailand).

So would he consider the timing bad?

"No. It's been a nice coup. It's very friendly," says Duda. "You have seen people giving flowers to the soldiers, posing for photos with tanks. It's business as usual. There is no interruption. [Telecom] traffic is going up. Mega-projects have been relaunched, which is good for the country."

Citing the relatively low penetration rates of various telecom products in the Kingdom, Duda says: "I have no doubts about the growth prospects of Thailand."

Alcatel has achieved sales growth of about 15 per cent in Thailand this year, up from 10 per cent in 2005. Among Duda's missions are to enter Alcatel into every business account and to bring broadband connectivity to everyone in Thailand.

"I want to develop broadband for all Thai people," he says.

Duda says Alcatel has the technology, which will allow deployment of low-revenue broadband, making the tariffs cheaper. He also wants to deploy it in low-density areas like rural Thailand. The company, he says, has moved its broadband equipment facilities to China, allowing it to make competitive offers for broadband technology.

Duda declines to speculate to what extent the currently expensive broadband tariffs in Thailand can be brought down, but says his vision would begin to take shape when Alcatel begins its projects for Triple-T Broadband - a subsidiary of TT&T - and TOT next year. However, he explains that the end-user's tariffs actually depend on the operators.

Thailand will follow North Asian countries, which already have high broadband penetration rates. Ultimately, Duda says, broadband will be as common in every home as electrical appliances.

"It will become like too yen [refrigerators] and TV," says Duda, who can speak Thai with reasonable fluency.

But while Duda is pushing for low broadband tariffs, he thinks cell-phone tariffs are too low in Thailand.

"The tariff is artificially very low and it's not sustainable," says Duda. The problem stems from the absence of the interconnection regime here, which allows the biggest player to benefit.

Despite his involvement with hi-tech, Duda's personal tastes are more classical. He prefers Mark Levinson to the iPOD, classic cars rather than the latest gadgets, playing piano, gardening, and shopping at the hi-fi centre and the Chatuchak weekend market, rather than going to a shopping mall.

"I like going to Siam Paragon but I don't buy anything," he says, laughing. On the contrary, he prefers to go shopping for antiques and tropical plants at Chatuchak.

Duda plans to apply for Thai citizenship next year and is now thinking of what Thai name he should have.

"[It's] still open for debate. I will hold a referendum [with Alcatel staff]," he jokes.

As he spends more time in Thailand, Duda is experiencing a distance with the land of his birth. He says nowadays he increasingly feels like a tourist when he goes to France.

Currently, he is building a house on Samui island, and the Alcatel boss plans to spend the rest of his life in Thailand. This is also his unique selling pitch.

"I'm not [a kind of] hit and run. I like Thailand. I'm here for the long term. My future is closely linked to the future of Alcatel," he says.

Listen to a full audio clip at www.nationmultimedia.com

Pichaya Changsorn

The Nation