CAT to run auction for TV licences

Natee Sukonrat said yesterday that among nine choices to conduct the auction proposed by the NBTC office, CAT was seen as the best alternative to manage and design the electronic auction system and software in accordance with the committee’s requirements. 

For transparency and accountability, this e-auction system must be certified by an independent auditor to comply with national standards on information security.

“For the past seven or eight years, CAT Telecom has been highly experienced in electronic auctions for a number of the state agencies. Importantly, CAT was an official auctioneer for the [project to construct the] Government Complex Commemorating His Majesty, valued at more than Bt20 billion,” Natee said.

Apart from CAT, the other eight proposed auction overseers were Biz Dimension, ICN System, Pop Network, Pantavanij, Suankularb Slurryseal, Newtron Auction, Freeinternet and TOT.

CAT will clear up in writing any possible conflicts of interest in this coming bid. It must declare that it will not join the spectrum auction for commercial digital terrestrial 

TV licences. However, it will be able to obtain licences for the infrastructure and networks to transmit digital TV signals. 

Natee estimated that the cost of running the auction would be about Bt5 million. The place and date of the auction will be set soon. The NBTC expects to stage the so-called forward auction in October. 

Of 24 commercial TV licences, seven have been reserved for variety channels in high definition; seven for variety channels in standard definition; seven for news programmes; and the remaining three for children’s programmes. 

The auction for each licence category will be held on different days. The auction of each licence must be completed within an hour. If the number of bidders who offer the highest prices is more than the number of available licences, the NBTC will add five-minute auction rounds until the winners of each licence category are known.