Broadcast panel to decide fees

Natee Sukonrat, chairman of the committee, revealed that once the four digital-network licensees had submitted their fee proposals, it would go through the documents and determine the proper rate for each network provider.
The four network operators are the Royal Army, MCOT, the Public Relations Department and Thai Public Broadcasting Service (Thai PBS).
Before making any decision on this matter, the broadcasting committee wanted to know how much money each state-run television broadcaster needed to spend on new facilities and transmitters for digital terrestrial TV and related transmission costs and their roll-out plans, Natee said.
“Affordable, reasonable and cost-based prices will be priority,” he stressed.
He delivered this message in a seminar held by the Thailand Develop-ment Research Institute last week.
The costs of network leasing and satellite transponders are among key factors that potential bidders for 24 commercial digital terrestrial TV channels really want to know before decide whether to participate in the coming spectrum auction.
CIMB Securities research suggests network operators would likely share infrastructure costs. It points to MCOT as a network operator that could spend about Bt750 million to Bt1 billion per multiplexer, a device that selects one of several digital input signals and forwards it into a single line. This money will be spent on the installation of multiplexer equipment in 153 main and gap-filler stations. MCOT will probably charge channel operators about Bt40 million to Bt60 million per standard-definition channel a year.
However, Nation Broadcasting Corp president Adisak Limprungpata-nakij said those charges were still too high for channel operators.