NBTC plans for 5 licence types for digital TV business
The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC)'s broadcasting committee expects to grant five types of licences for digital terrestrial television service, starting late this year.
This is part of its plan to switch the broadcasting industry from analogue to digital within four years.
Natee Sukonrat, chairman of the NBTC broadcasting committee, said the first type of licence would be for those that want to invest in new digital TV transmitters across the country. One or two licences will be available.
The second type of licence will be for those installing digital networks to broadcast TV programmes.
The third type is the spectrum licences, while the fourth is business-operation licences. The broadcasters are likely to pay different rates depending on the type of licences. For example, the licence for commercial broadcasters would be higher than for public broadcasting services and community purposes.
The fifth type of licence is for application providers, which will provide interactive services for broadcasters.
The NBTC’s subcommittee for planning on digital terrestrial television will convene for the first time on Thursday.
Six existing terrestrial TV operators – BEC’s ThaiTV3, the Royal Thai Army’s TV5, BBTV’s Channel 7, MCOT’s Modernine TV, NBT and the Thai Public Broadcasting Service (ThaiPBS) – provide service on an ultra-high-frequency (UHF) bandwidth ranging from 500-698 megahertz. Natee said this spectrum band was big enough that part of it could be allocated to create up to 50 digital terrestrial TV channels.
Thus the watchdog hopes to start auctioning licences for potential infrastructure developers and network providers for digital terrestrial TV broadcasting this year.
Currently six free-TV operators transmit analogue signals via their own stations; for example, ThaiTV3 and NBT each have 32 stations, TV5 has 39, Channel 7 has 37, Modernine TV has 36 and ThaiPBS has 52.
Natee said that by converting the terrestrial TV platform from analogue to digital technology, the broadcasting industry could benefit from increased spectrum efficiency.
Customers could benefit primarily from the possibility of processing and compression: for example, a wider choice of TV channels and improved picture and sound quality.
