Clarity sought on NTC rules
The ICT Ministry will talk to the national watchdog soon to ask for clarity and objectives of its regulations preventing foreign dominance of local telecom operators.
Information and Communication Technology Minister Anudith Nakornthap made the remark yesterday after Sigve Brekke, head of Telenor Group for the Asian region, and Jon Eddy Abdullah, chief executive officer of Total Access Communication (DTAC), paid a courtesy visit to him yesterday.
Both wanted to know the ministry's policy on 3G service development and its stance on the foreign-dominance regulations of the National Telecommunications Commission.
The regulations, which took effect on Tuesday, aim to prevent full control of local telecom operators' management by their foreign strategic partners and the use of Thai nominees to get around foreign-ownership restrictions.
The NTC said the rules would enable it to regulate foreign investment in the telecom industry transparently.
Advanced Info Service and DTAC both have foreign strategic partners - Singapore Telecom for AIS and Norway's Telenor for DTAC.
Anudith said Brekke and Abdullah also queried him on the ministry's plan to handle the industry after cellular concessions of the two state agencies, CAT Telecom and TOT, come to an end.
The concessions of TrueMove and Digital Phone Co will expire in 2013, that of AIS in 2015 and DTAC's in 2018.
DTAC launched a third-generation wireless broadband service, using the 850-megahertz spectrum, early last month in Bangkok, though CAT wanted it to wait until the agency had heard back from the Office of the Attorney-General on whether such a service was appropriate under the terms of its concession. DTAC maintains that the service could be launched under the permit it had secured from the NTC to install and use 3G network equipment.
Its 3G service now has about 400,000 subscribers.
In a separate matter, Anudith said the appointments of new boards of both CAT and TOT were likely to take place this month.
