No plan to auction prized numbers
The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC)'s telecom committee has scrapped a plan to auction existing and future highly-prized mobile phone numbers, and is expected to allocate them to private mobile phone operators instead.
These numbers, which feature at least four identical consecutive digits – for example, xxx-xxx-9999 – are highly sought after by mobile-phone users. The watchdog has 1.6 million of the prized mobile-phone numbers in hand, which were reserved during the tenure of the agency’s predecessor, the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC).
An NBTC source said the committee is considering allocating these numbers to private mobile-phone operators. If it does, it risks accusations of favouring the operators, which can auction them for large sums.
The average auction price of a mobile-phone number with three consecutive identical digits ranges from Bt500 to Bt2,000. Numbers with at least four consecutive identical digits are expected to fetch a higher price if they are made available on the market.
Telecom committee chairman Settapong Malisuwan said that if the committee auctions the popular numbers by itself, it would be tantamount to limiting them to rich people, who can afford to bid for them.
The committee’s five members had split views on the issue. Some said the panel should auction the numbers on its own to seek revenue for the state or to finance its provision of equal access to telecom services among Thais.
Others said the committee is not bound by any obligations or laws to auction these numbers. To auction them means it will have to waste time drawing up auction regulations, whereas it would be better to give top priority to other more important tasks such as completing the auction plan of the 3G-2.1GHz spectrum licences.
“The watchdog should not seek more regulatory work for itself. It has other, much more crucial regulations to finish. In addition, if it can make lot of money from auctioning these numbers, it will face questions about why it needs to seek lots of money,” said one telecom committee member.
