NBTC plans price caps for 4G voice, data services
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THE NATIONAL Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) will set a price cap for fourth-generation wireless broadband that will be applied to the winners of the upcoming auction for licences to the 1,800- and 900-megahertz spectra.
Takorn Tantasith, secretary-general of the NBTC, said the commission was drawing up the regulations for price caps for both voice and data services. The regulations will be applied to all current 3G and 4G services and will also cover the winners of the licence auctions in November. An NBTC source said the initial price cap for voice services is Bt0.55 per minute and Bt0.86 per megabit for data.
The NBTC office will submit the new regulations for the telecom committee’s consideration soon before taking them to a public hearing.
Takorn said the price cap would be part of the conditions of the 1,800MHz and 900MHz licences.
“The NBTC has to follow the policy of the prime minister that the government and all people should benefit from the auctions,” he said, adding that the price cap would make voice and data services more affordable and thereby broaden people’s access to them. The new price cap will replace the existing maximum retail rate of Bt0.99 per minute for voice. That rate is applied only to significant market players (SMPs), which are those telecom operators with market shares of more than 25 per cent.
Yesterday the NBTC held a public hearing on the draft rules for the upcoming auction of telecom licences on the 1,800MHz spectrum. The commission expects to auction two licenses on 900MHz on November 10 and on 1,800MHz the next day.
Representatives of law firms and some telecom operators including Advanced Info Service and Total Access Communication (DTAC) have said the watchdog should remove the spectrum-ownership cap from the auction rules. The NBTC wants this condition included to prevent hoarding of bandwidth.
The auction rules limit the total bandwidth each telecom operator can own at 60MHz. The rule also requires the bid winners to hand over part of their bandwidth if they end up exceeding the maximum after the auction. The excess will be transferred to the NBTC or the state telecom agencies, depending on which of them issued the bandwidth in question.
