NBTC setting up four panels to handle auction
The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission will set up four committees to handle the 2.1GHz spectrum auction, which will take place in mid-October.
NBTC secretary-general Takorn Tantasit said yesterday that the four panels are an auction preparation committee, a bidder prequalification committee, an auctioneer committee, and a panel examining whether there are any connections among the bidders. Takorn said the watchdog would hold the auction on either October 15 or 16.
If any problems arise during the auction, the NBTC will meet on October 17 to solve them. However, he expressed confidence that no such problems would crop up.
The NBTC will today make available the Information Memorandum for the auction. Interested bidders can purchase the document for Bt500,000. It has been speculated that only Advanced Info Service (AIS), Total Access Communication (DTAC) and True Corp will take part in the bidding.
Takorn said he had heard that China Telecom is also interested in the auction, but he has no idea whether it will take part in the bidding.
The licensing terms and conditions of the 2.1GHz spectrum were published in the Royal Gazette on Monday.
The NBTC will call for bidding for nine spectrum slots, each containing 5MHz of bandwidth at a reserve price of Bt4.5 billion. Each bidder can bid for a maximum 15MHz of bandwidth.
The terms and conditions have raised concern from academics that the three potential bidders might collude to grab 15MHz bandwidth apiece in a low-competition contest. If this proved to be the case, the final prices achieved at the auction would at best be only a little higher than the reserve price.
The scenario that there would be no new players in the auction besides AIS, DTAC and True also raises concern that the Thai cellular market would still be dominated by these three incumbent operators.
However, the NBTC argues that the spectrum assignment stage of the auction will ensure there is competitive bidding.
The assignment stage provides that bidders offering the highest quotes will be the first to select their desired spectrum ranges.
This follows the first stage of the auction, which is the bidding for slot numbers.
