NBTC vice chairman unveil development plans

Colonel Natee Sukonrat, vice chairman in charge of the NBTC broadcasting committee, said the committee's urgent task is to draw up plans to regulate the community radio, TV and radio broadcasting sectors and to switch the TV broadcasting industry from analogue to digital broadcasting technology. He aims to achieve these within three years.

His committee will have to talk to all TV broadcasters and TV spectrum owners for what he calls the "digital switchover" plan.

Natee said he would disclose details of his plan to liberalise the industry after all 11 commissioners are royally endorsed.

As TV viewers will need digital TV set-top boxes to receive digital TV signals, the broadcasting committee is expected to ask TV broadcasters to partially finance the device for viewers. The rest will be funded by an NBTC budget for development of the telecom and broadcasting industry.

The broadcasting committee will also ask TV and radio spectrum owners - all are state agencies - to return their idle spectra for reallocation by the NBTC. It is one of the daunting tasks before the NBTC as the state agencies are unlikely to easily give up their treasured control over spectra.

The broadcasting committee is also expected to propose to broadcasters to adopt a similar model as the telecom industry, where state telecom operators have leased their networks to firms to provide telecom services. It might convince the state spectrum owners to position themselves as the network provider, while NBTC future broadcasting licencees should act as service providers. This will be a win-win situation for both of them.

The NBTC has to finish the spectrum-management master plan within one year of its establishment before it can grant any new spectrum licences. The master plan will determine the periods all the spectrum owners have to return their spectra for reassignment.

Colonel Settapong Malisuwan, vice chairman in charge of the NBTC's telecom committee, said one of the urgent tasks of his committee was to draw up a plan to auction the long-awaited 3G-2.1GHz spectrum licences.

He expects the auction to take place as early as in the middle of next year, given that the committee does not have to draw up the plan from scratch, but could develop the plan based on the existing 3G licensing plan of the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC). He said the new licensing plan would not be a total change from the NTC's plan, except for some legal and technological details.

The NTC finished the 3G licensing plan last year, but its planned auction of 3G spectrum licences was suspended by a Central Administrative Court injunction last September following a petition by CAT Telecom challenging the NTC's authority to grant new spectrum licences.

The broadcasting and the telecom committees will discuss a plan to issue spectra that can be used to provide converged telecom and broadcasting services, such as the spectra for WiMax, said Settapong, adding - as did Natee - that he would share more details after the royal endorsement.

It remains to be seen if the NBTC can smoothly achieve all its goals, due to legal challenges over the selection process of final NBTC candidates.

The Senate secretariat will submit the names of 11 NBTC commissioners to Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra on September 19, which she will then forward for royal endorsement.

The NBTC was viewed as being dominated by the top brass, as five out of 11 commissioners are military men. But its chairman, ACM Thares Punsri, rejected this perception, saying that all will work together at the NBTC.

Thares was chairman of the Defence Technology Institute board and studied in the same Pre-Cadet Class 6 as privy councillor ACM Chalit Pukphasuk. Chalit is former Air Force chief and deputy head of the now defunct Council for the National Security.

Two other commissioners are Lt-General Peerapong Manakit and Pol Colonel Thaweesak Ngamsanga.

Peerapong is former satellite TV chief of Channel 5, while Thaweesak is a former member of the executive committee of the Puea Pandin Party, and has close relations with key party member Pinit Jarusombat.

Peerapong and Thaweesak were nominated to contend for NBTC seats by Yonok University, where General Thongchai Kuasakul is the council chairman and Siritaj Rojanapruk, chief executive officer of Com-Link, is the university's licence owner and licence holder. Nation U, the joint venture of Nation Multimedia Group and the South-East Asia University, recently signed a takeover deal with Siritaj to own and operate the university.

In 2005, General Thongchai was selected as chairman of the then-proposed National Broadcasting Commission (NBC). But the Central Administrative Court ruled in 2005 to invalidate the selection process of NBC finalists. It ruled that the NBC selection panel's resolution and announcement in January 2005 selecting 14 NBC finalists for seven NBC seats was unlawful.

Of the other three top brass NBTC commissioners, Natee was a former NTC commissioner, while Settapong was adviser to the NTC. The other top brass commissioner is General Sukit Khamasundara, a special adviser at the Royal Thai Armed Forces headquarters with a background in social development.