NBTC committed to spectrum licensing in October

It is also set to appoint a subcommittee to handle the expiry of TrueMove’s and Digital Phone Co’s concessions, which end at the same time in September next year. 

Suthiphon Thaveechaiyagarn, a member of the NBTC, said yesterday that the watchdog intended to implement the spectrum auction as planned and on a fair-bidding basis. It has already done many things to plug legal loopholes. 

He made the remarks on the topic of 3G technology and Thailand’s opportunity on the occasion of the 12th anniversary of the country’s first 24-hour news station, Nation Channel.

NBTC telecom committee chairman Settapong Malisuwan said at the same event that the 3G cellular broadband technology would create a wireless data superhighway to meet the exponential growth of mobile-data consumption by Thai mobile-phone users. He added that the watchdog was already halfway towards auctioning the 2.1GHz licences. 

According to the NBTC, it will auction nine slots of the 2.1GHz spectrum, each containing 5 megahertz bandwidth. The maximum bandwidth each of the bidders is allowed to grab is capped at 20MHz. The telecom committee will finalise the spectrum reserve price – the price floor of a spectrum slot – next week, which is expected to be Bt4.3 billion per slot.

Currently there are 84 million mobile-phone SIM cards being used in Thailand, which is expected to reach 100 million in the next two years. The total value of the telecom service industry is about Bt250 billion a year, of which about 72 per cent is contributed by the mobile-phone sector.

Settapong said the NBTC telecom committee was also set to appoint a subcommittee to handle the expiry of TrueMove’s and Digital Phone’s concessions. He said it was legally clear that after their concessions end, the 1,800MHz spectrum blocks allocated to them by CAT Telecom will be transferred to the NBTC for reallocation.

In a related 3G matter, Advanced Info Service chief executive officer Wichian Mektrakarn said on the sidelines of the same event that AIS had no problem about the NBTC imposing new regulations on preventing foreign dominance in the telecom industry. But it is better not to issue them as it might lead to legal challenges.

The NBTC is revising the existing foreign-dominance regulations and the revised ri;es are expected to go into effect next month. On Thursday, Total Access Communication (DTAC) voiced concern that the revised regulations could be exploited by some parties to sabotage the NBTC plan to auction the 2.1GHz licences. 

Telecom scholar Anupap Tiralap said at the Nation Channel event that the NBTC must focus on bringing 3G technology to benefit people on an equal basis.