NBTC worried over 1,800MHz auction delay

The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission is yet to receive any signal from the junta on resume preparations for the auction.

Takorn Tantasith, secretary-general of the NBTC, said early this week that the licensing body had contacted the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) last month seeking permission to resume the process to auction off the 1,800-megahertz spectrum bands of TrueMove and Digital Phone Co (DPC). 

There has been no response from the junta so far. 

The 1,800MHz spectrum is the international standard band for providing fourth-generation wireless broadband service.

“We’ve been waiting for the green light from the NCPO. If it lets us resume the process to auction the licences before July 17, we’ll be able to call the bids by the third quarter of this year. Otherwise, the auction will be delayed to December or even later,” Takorn said. 

The NBTC originally planned to auction the 1,800MHz bandwidth of both TrueMove and DPC in the middle of last year, but last July 17 the junta ordered it to suspend the auction for one year, pending complete clarification of the auction plan.

The telecom operators are hopeful of seeing the auction happen as soon as possible to allow them to acquire more bandwidth to serve rising demand for wireless Internet service from their subscribers. They also regard 4G as a key factor to ensure the success of the government’s plan to promote a “digital economy”. The government has drafted 10 bills related to promotion of the digital economy. 

One of them appears to limit the NBTC’s power to award only commercial spectra, while that of assigning spectra for public use will be transferred from the commission to a “digital economy committee” planned by the military regime. 

True Corp was the first telecom operator in Thailand to offer commercial 4G service, using the 2.1-gigahertz spectrum, followed by Total Access Communication (DTAC). 

Advanced Info Service has yet to launch a commercial 4G service. According to AIS’s filing to the Stock Exchange of Thailand about its 2014 financial performance, it expects the 1,800MHz auction to be held in the third quarter of this year. 

Since the suspension of the 1,800MHz spectrum auction last July was through an NCPO order, a telecom analyst estimated that AIS, which has the largest subscriber base but with a relatively smaller spectrum bandwidth, could face a spectrum shortage from late 2015 onwards. If so, this might pave the way for rivals DTAC and True, both of which have more bandwidth and smaller subscriber bases, to nab subscribers from AIS, especially in urban areas.