NBTC's telecom committee is on the process of selecting advisor for auction of the 3G-2.1GHz spectru

The committee tasked to hire the advisor gave the highest scores of 95.5 per cent to the technical proposal of Power Auction, which proposed fee of around Bt17.05 million, while Nera, which proposed around Bt9.11 million, came in the second at 93.2 per cent scores. Auction Technologies, which proposed around Bt21.06 million, scored 93 per cent. Later Power Auction offered to cut the fee to Bt15.34 million, versus the median price of Bt15 million.

The hiring committee had already submitted the result for consideration of the telecom committee, which instructed the NBTC office to review the result and make a final selection by its own before submitting the final result for its approval.

The NBTC office shortlisted four companies to bid to be the 3G plan consultant, including DotEcon, Nera, Power Auction, and Auction Technologies, and sent the invitation letters to them on June 12. All, except DotEcon, sent technical and financial proposals to the office. It considered their technical and financial proposals at the same time.

Nera was consultant of the NBTC predecessor, National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), in developing licensing plan of the 3G spectrum in 2010. It quoted hiring fee of around Bt15 million. However, the planned auction was aborted by the Central Administrative Court’s injunction as requested by CAT Telecom, following its challenge of the NTC licensing authority at the court.

The NBTC which set a tentative date to hold the 2.1GHz spectrum auction in October, will hold the first public hearing on the draft of the spectrum licensing terms and conditions this Friday (20). It will auction nine slots of the spectrum, each containing 5 MHz bandwidth. The floor price of each slot is Bt4.5 billion.