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Double number portability capacity, phone firms told
The telecom committee of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission yesterday ordered the five telecom operators to double their phone-number portability capacity to a combined 40,000 numbers per day.
Number portability enables customers to switch to different networks without having to lose their existing mobile-phone numbers in the process. The committee also urged the operators to seek ways to reduce the number-transfer fee from the present Bt99. Currently about 3,000 mobile-phone users a day request number transfers.
In a separate matter, the NBTC’s telecom and broadcast research-and-development fund granted financial support of Bt950 million for the Information and Communications Technology Ministry’s free public Wi-Fi project.
The project will install the service at 30,000 locations nationwide, including 78 state universities, 6,720 city halls and district offices, 1,100 ICT learning centres, 864 state hospitals, 1,738 police stations, 4,500 postal offices, and 15,000 tourism places and interprovincial bus stations.
The service will offer a connection speed of 2 megabits per second. One can access the service for 20 minutes per log-in and can use it for a total of two hours per day. The ministry has assigned TOT to implement the project.
The ministry has already installed free Wi-Fi service in 120,000 spots across the country and will increase that to 400,000 over the next two years.
Loan growth slows
The slowing growth of lending is a good sign that banks are becoming more cautious, said Bank of Thailand Assistant Governor Salinee Wangtal.
The lending of commercial banks in March expanded by 13.9 per cent, down from 14.9 per cent in February. However, the BOT believes overall loan growth is sufficient to serve the country’s economic expansion, she said.
Fund debut
Kasikorn Asset Management expects to be the underwriter for three or four infrastructure funds worth a combined Bt12 billion this year after helping KPN Group Corporation sell KPN Property Fund (KPNPF) to investors on the Stock Exchange of Thailand yesterday.
KPNPF made its trading debut on the SET at the opening price at Bt10.20 per unit, higher than the Bt10 of the initial public offering.
Chongrak Rattanapian, executive chairman of KAsset, said investors were still confident in the Thai stock market, and the SET Index this year is expected to stay around 1,600 points, while listed companies’ earnings were expected to rise by 15-20 per cent.
