Govt to take direct charge of some spectra from NBTC
The government will take over the management of communications spectra for national security and public service from the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC), which will only handle spectra for commercial purposes, according to D
He made the remark in his keynote speech at the “NBTC Expo Thailand” (NET2015) event at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Centre in Bangkok yesterday.
The Information and Communications Technology Ministry and the NBTC next week will discuss their plans to reclaim spectra from state telecom enterprises, NBTC secretary-general Takorn Tantasith said.
He acknowledged that he still did not know how many 900-megahertz licences would be put up for auction, pending the discussion between the NBTC and the ministry next week.
The NBTC said earlier that it would call bids in November for two licences on the 900MHz spectrum and two on 1,800MHz. TOT previously granted the 900MHz bandwidth to Advanced Info Service, under a concession that will expire on September 30.
While the NBTC will put some of this spectrum up for auction, TOT wants to keep some of it to continue offering services.
Takorn said the NBTC was seeking solutions to help TOT on this issue.
According to an ICT Ministry source, it is considering asking the government to allow TOT to keep 10MHz of its total of 20MHz bandwidth on the 900MHz spectrum and allocate the remaining 10MHz to the NBTC for inclusion in the November auction.
However, the ministry has to consult with the commission first on whether that is possible, and if it is not, whether there is any other bandwidth that could be given to TOT.
If TOT can keep 10MHz of the 900MHz spectrum, the NBTC will have only 10MHz left to put on the block. Originally it planned to auction two 900MHz licences, each with 10MHz of bandwidth.
The ministry and the NBTC were going to submit their own version of the plan to reclaim spectra from state enterprises but the government told them to fine-tune and combine the plans for forwarding to the government.
Takorn said the NBTC would try to reclaim bandwidth on the 700MHz, 900MHz, 1,800MHz, 2.3-gigahertz and 2.5GHz spectra, and it might ask the military-led government to use its power under Article 44 of the interim charter to help reclaim some of this.
