Digital TV licences must be issued this year: NBTC

The planned granting of terrestrial digital TV licences must take place this year as Thailand needs to have the free TV channels as a mainstream to support national security, said Natee Sukonrat, chairman of the broadcasting committee at the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC).

He added that the country needs to create a balance between free TV channels and the rising dominance of satellite TV channels.

The broadcasting committee will auction 24 commercial digital TV licences and grant 12 public channel licences and 12 community licences via a “beauty contest”. The contest will award licences to those with the most feasible proposals.

Digital TV will be broadcast on the 510-790 megahertz range. But there is concern that digital TV licensing might stumble as the NBTC’s telecom roadmap subcommittee has proposed that the spectrum range of 698MHz to 806MHz be reserved for future provision of broadband wireless service. The broadcasting committee should use the 470-694MHz range for digital TV broadcast instead. The subcommittee argued that use of the 698MHz to 806MHz range for wireless service would be in line with the standards of International Telecom Union (ITU) and Asia Pacific Telecommunity (APT).

Last week, the telecom committee concluded that it would ask NBTC chairman Thares Punsri to get the NBTC board to consider setting up a joint panel of telecom-broadcast committees to seek technical solutions to this problem in a manner that would not affect the planned digital TV licensing.

“I’m confident that the joint panel will be able to solve this issue,” Natee said.

Natee has affirmed that the broadcasting committee has taken into account all possible problems when drawing up related plans and regulations to switch Thailand to the digital TV era. One example is that it has determined that the digital TV signal receiving equipment has to work with spectra band ranging from 470MHz to 790MHz. 

Regulations of the digital TV broadcast spectrum also make it mandatory for digital TV licence holders to take responsibility on their own if they have to switch to use other spectra to air digital TV programmes in the near future. The broadcasting committee has been aware that there might be the need to adjust the spectrum bands for airing digital TV channels in the next four to five years.

Natee insists that this spectrum adjustment, when it takes place, would not have a significant impact on the licence holders and the audience.

He admitted that Malaysia had requested the NBTC to coordinate with it on the possible spectrum jam on the Thailand-Malaysia border as Malaysia plans to develop a broadband wireless service on the 700MHz band, the same band that Thailand has set aside for the digital TV broadcast.

Natee said that Malaysia is not expected to utilise the 700MHz spectrum for the broadband wireless service until 2020. “By that time, we’ll be able to reclaim the range of 470MHz-510MHz for digital TV broadcast,” Natee added. He believes that the frequency coordination with Malaysia could help prevent signal interference at the border.

Telecom committee chairman Settapong Malisuwan said recently that his committee is ready to help the Natee committee reclaim this 470MHz-510MHz range for digital TV broadcast.

TOT owns the 470MHz spectrum band, which it uses to provide cellular service in remote areas. The state agency intends to keep the spectrum until 2025.

While the telecom committee is keen to use the 700MHz spectrum band for providing broadband wireless service in the future, Natee said the telecom committee would have to wait a long time before it could do so. Channel 3 and 7 are still utilising this band and the 2010 Frequency Allocation Law protects their concessions until the concession ends. The concession of Channel 3 will expire in 2020, and that of Channel 7 ends in 2022.