State enterprise workers urge NBTC to scrap spectrum role
The State Enterprises Workers' Relations Confederation (SERC) and the State Enterprises Workers' Federation of Thailand (SEWFOT) yesterday urged the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) to discontinue its spectrum allocation ro
They argued that its recent telecom spectrum assignment could affect the revenue of state enterprises.
About 200 representatives of these two organisations, which included labour unions of CAT Telecom, TOT and MCOT, gathered at the NBTC headquarters on Phaholyothin Road in Bangkok yesterday to make the request.
The NBTC’s deputy secretary-general, Korchai Danwichit, said the watchdog and the confederation shared a common position of upholding maximum national interest, though they may differ on some points. He said one major NBTC mission was the spectrum reallocation, which in some aspects might fail to satisfy all the parties during this transition period from the existing regime to the licensing regime.
Another NBTC deputy secretary-general, Trairat Viriyasirikul, said the commission had no intention to hurt state enterprises.
According to the confederation’s statement, the change from the concession regime to the NBTC licensing regime is tantamount to giving the benefit to the private sector at the expense of the state-run TOT and CAT. The watchdog also allegedly failed to ensure fair competition in the telecom industry.
The NBTC awarded the 2.1-gigahertz spectrum licences via auction to three private cellular operators last December. The 2010 Frequency Allocation Law obligates the NBTC to reallocate the broadcasting and telecom spectra via auction only.
The confederation also said that state enterprises like MCOT would lose their advantage if they have to bid for the terrestrial commercial digital TV channel licences against the private firms in the auction, which is expected to take place late this year.
It also criticised some conditions in the digital TV licence auction. One is that if at the end of the auction, there are still many bidders proposing the same price, they will be asked to draw lots to decide the winners. This method might result in the country failing to get operators most ready to provide service.
The Cabinet last week approved in principle MCOT’s plan to join the digital TV bidding, with a Bt5-billion budget for the auction.
