900MHz bids top Bt110 bn

THE combined price of the two 900MHz licences being auctioned had reached Bt119.108 billion as of 9pm yesterday, reflecting the intense competition in the mobile telecommunications sector. 

At press time the bidding, which began at 9am on Tuesday, was still on.

Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Somkid Jatusripitak said yesterday that the high bids for fourth-generation licences on the 900-megahertz spectrum would be good, as they would make available more money for the country’s development as well as providing financial aid to farmers, who were affected by the sliding agricultural-product prices.

“The bidding, even though it has exceeded Bt100 billion, is not very high if we consider the annual growth and the business potential in the future,” he said.

“It’s hard to predict when it will end,” said National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission secretary-general Takorn Tantasith.

The auction of two 1,800MHz licences last month ended at round 86 after 33 hours of bidding. The total price of both licences combined was Bt80.778 billion.

As of 9pm yesterday at round 144, the bid for the first 900MHz licence block was Bt55.266 billion, while that for the second one was Bt60.842 billion. The starting bid for both licences was Bt12.680 billion.

The combined bids for the two 900MHz licences exceeded Bt100 billion for the first time at 10.36am yesterday at round 113.

This means that the state will be richer by almost Bt200 billion from auctioning the two 900MHz licences this week and the two 1,800MHz licences last month.

NBTC deputy secretary-general Korkij Danchaivichit said the high bids for the 900MHz licences reflected the strong commitment of the bidders’ foreign strategic partners that they are ready to invest heavily in Thailand and that they are here to stay.

The four bidders in the fray are Advanced Wireless Network of Advanced Info Service (AIS), DTAC TriNet of Total Access Communication (DTAC), True Move H Universal Communi-cation of True Corp, and Jas Mobile Broadband of Jasmine International.

Suwat Techawatanawana, first senior vice president of Kasikornbank, said the bank was worried that as the price soars higher it will add to the high operating cost for the bid winners.

However, he said that the current prices were acceptable to KBank, adding that a bidder to whom the bank had issued bank guarantees could afford to deal with the possible higher operating cost.

Though the final price will be high, the winners are allowed to make payments in four instalments and the instalment amounts won’t be high when compared with the annual profitability of each of the bidders, he added.

AIS’s share price dropped 5.58 per cent to close at Bt203 yesterday, while DTAC fell 7.14 per cent to close at Bt42.25, True dropped 3.29 per cent to close at Bt7.35, and Jas fell 4.02 per cent to close at Bt4.78.

As of 5pm, True executives in the bidding requested more cloth. Takorn yesterday reaffirmed that the service fee on the 900MHz service would be lower than that of the existing 3G services, despite the high price of the 900MHz licences.

The conditions stipulated for the 900MHz licences protect consumers. The bid winners are obliged to cover 50 per cent of the population with the 900MHz network within four years of getting the licence, before rising to 80 per cent of total population in eight years.