NBTC ready with its broadband master plan
The national broadcasting and telecom regulatory body has finished the draft Universal Service Obligation (USO) master plan, which aims to cover 90 per cent of the population with broadband networks within five years.
General Sukit Khamasundara, commissioner of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC), who is in charge of developing the plan, said he would submit the draft for the NBTC board’s consideration soon. If approved, a public hearing on the draft is expected to take place in late January.
The USO fund is aimed at promoting equal access to telecom services. The draft divides the coverage into prime areas and non-business areas. The primary broadband network rollout will focus on hospitals, schools and Tambon Administrative Organisations’ precincts.
The public hearing on the draft will focus on determining an appropriate annual contribution to the USO fund by the watchdog’s licencees, and whether all three types of licencees should be subject to the contributions.
In the era of the now defunct National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), only holders of its Type 2 and Type 3 licences were required to promote telecom services in remote areas as part of the USO’s regulations. Those who declined to do so were required to contribute 4 per cent of their annual revenue to the USO fund, to allow the NTC to hire other firms to promote telecom services in remote areas. The NBTC’s draft USO master plan would require all licencees to make annual contributions.
There is still almost Bt3 billion left in the USO fund.
The public hearing will focus on whether contributions to the fund by the licence-holders should be lower than 4 per cent, Sukit said.
Holders of Type 1 licences do not have their own networks. Holders of Type 2 licences may or may not have their own networks and compete for limited groups of customers. Holders of Type 3 licences have their own networks and their competition has a wide-scale impact on the public.
