Thai Supreme Administrative Court Rejects NTC's Appeal Against 3G Injunction

[webfact]

Urgent: Supreme Administrative Court rejects NTC's appeal against 3G injunction

The Supreme Administrative Court Thursday upheld the lower court's injunction against 3G auction.

The Supreme Administrative Court rejected the NTC's appeal against the injunction by the Central Administrative Court on ground that although 3G auction is for public interest, it must be legitimate.

The injunction is in place until the Central Administrative Court will finish the judicial review of the complaint against the auction filed by CAT Plc, which accused the NTC of lacking authority to auction off the licenses.

-- The Nation 2010-09-23

[webfact]

Court Rules NTC Does Not Have Authority to Auction 3G

The Supreme Administrtive Court has ruled, standing by an earlier decision by the Administrtive Court that the National Telecommunications Commission or NTC does not have the authority to auction off 3G licensing.

-- Tan Network 2010-09-23

[webfact]

3G AUCTION

3G injunction retained by Supreme Administrative Court

By The Nation

The Supreme Administrative Court Thursday upheld the lower court's injunction against 3G auction.

The Supreme Administrative Court rejected the NTC's appeal against the injunction by the Central Administrative Court on ground that although 3G auction is for public interest, it must be legitimate.

The injunction is in place until the Central Administrative Court will finish the judicial review of the complaint against the auction filed by CAT Plc, which accused the NTC of lacking authority to auction off the licenses.

The Supreme Administrative Court added that the country's development would not be disrupted without 3G or third generation wireless data service.

The court said it has considered the issue thoroughly that if the auction is allowed to happen, it will cause more damages than benefiting the country.

Natee Sukolrat, the chairman of NTC's 3G working panel, will hold a press conference at the NTC head office at 2 pm.

The NTC is required to return the auction deposit to the three bidders, each of Bt1.280 billion.

-- The Nation 2010-09-23

[ChiangMaiThai]

What a backwards country we are living in. By the time they sort this out, Laos and Cambodia will be on 4G. Absolutely zero interest in the wellbeing of the public.

[bkk75]

What a backwards country we are living in. By the time they sort this out, Laos and Cambodia will be on 4G. Absolutely zero interest in the wellbeing of the public.

Welcome to Amazing Thailand!

Bureaucracy, greed, corruption and fear always stops progress.

I think we need a foreigner prime minister with full arm body guard to take Thailand out of the stone age.

[stevehaigh]

What a backwards country we are living in. By the time they sort this out, Laos and Cambodia will be on 4G. Absolutely zero interest in the wellbeing of the public.

Welcome to Amazing Thailand!

Bureaucracy, greed, corruption and fear always stops progress.

I think we need a foreigner prime minister with full arm body guard to take Thailand out of the stone age.

we we have a foreigner prime minister now but its not helping much

[gotlost]

3 G coming to you NEXT DECADE:whistling:

Edited September 23, 2010 by gotlost

[hammered]

Thats another 3-4 year wait with all the asociated damage to investment and development. Still at leats the bureacrats of CAT and TOT get to keep all their perks, exalted position and the status quo at the expense of everyone else in the country.

Oh and of course the opportunity to extend access to information to areas where there are no land lines, ie poor areas, is delayed for another age or two which will no doubt please the dinosaurs.

[tomyummer]

And the funny thing is...we're all suckers for even buying 3G phones. I've had one for the past 2 years. Stupid me for thinking this was an advanced country.

[tomyummer]

I think the country should say the auction is for 10G so that by the time comes when the public ACTUALLY gets the system, it WILL be 10G. Plan ahead dummies.

[asiawatcher]

The whole situation is totally laughable. Let's go back to carrier pidgeons.

[RolandGarros]

And the funny thing is...we're all suckers for even buying 3G phones. I've had one for the past 2 years. Stupid me for thinking this was an advanced country.

I've been using 3G last year with True's trial in Bangkok, so here's hoping they'll continue that

[mausplan]

In almost any other country the head of the Government would issue an order to control a key strategic industry and that would be that, these are public servants after all . As much as I am a critic  of the Chinese Government  , right now we could use some of their toughness to smack a few heads together to start to control the corruption and self interest that riddles Thailand right now. <div><br></div><div>This is the worst case example of MaiPenRai ,     of Thai's not wanting to offend each other. <div><br></div><div>Can you imagine the singing and laughing at the victory lunch the CAT and TOT boys will be having today.  </div></div>

[SamritT]

Chaiyo. Phone co cannot use 3G excuse to put up price.

[ukfool]

What a backwards country we are living in. By the time they sort this out, Laos and Cambodia will be on 4G. Absolutely zero interest in the wellbeing of the public.

Welcome to Amazing Thailand!

Bureaucracy, greed, corruption and fear always stops progress.

I think we need a foreigner prime minister with full arm body guard to take Thailand out of the stone age.

You already have one ? Abhisit was born and bred, educated etc in England UK, unfortunately he never learnt a dam_n thing !

[ukfool]

What a backwards country we are living in. By the time they sort this out, Laos and Cambodia will be on 4G. Absolutely zero interest in the wellbeing of the public.

Welcome to Amazing Thailand!

Bureaucracy, greed, corruption and fear always stops progress.

I think we need a foreigner prime minister with full arm body guard to take Thailand out of the stone age.

we we have a foreigner prime minister now but its not helping much

Yes, but although he was born, raised and educated in England UK, he learnt absolutely nothing !

[jfchandler]

In addition to the current and ongoing True 3G trial in BKK and some other areas, TOT and several of its licensees such as I-Mobile also are continuing to offer a pretty decent 3G service in Bangkok. It's just AIS and DTAC customers that will get screwed by this...

That, and, the True 3G trial is on the 850 Mhz band, which not all phones can receive. The TOT service is on the more common 2100 Mhz 3G band... The CAT also was fighting to stop True from offering its 3G trial in past months, but I haven't seen any outcome of that effort... True continues to offer their 3G, as best as I can tell.

[Thai at Heart]

Doesn't this mean that the "Fiasco continues" as opposed to being "halted"?

Quite misleading headline. Anyway, so it is not decided by a court that a standing government entity doesn't have the legal right to carry out part of its responsibility.

So now even parts of the government have restrictions on the jobs they can do?

[Sunny Valentine]

It is called checks and balances, and Constitution.

As much as I would like to use a 3G phone in Thailand, I have to admit there is something positive about the Courts safeguarding the constitution, which, if we like it or not, has clear procedures written down, that deserve to be followed, or the Consitution to be rewritten.

Now the question if it is really necessary to write such specified details in the constitution is allowed, but the facts remain, and I am happy that the courts did not bow to the public and governmental pressure here.

Begs the question why this commission required has not been founded, after more than 3 Years after the referendum. This is the scandal.

[Thaison]

We are now in september 2010. More or less 12 years ago the EU made a decision that all EU-member states should have the possibility of 3G services before january 1, 2002. I got my first 3G-subscription 2003 and Stockholm and Oslo have had 4G (rather 3,9G with download speed of 100 Mb/s and upload speed of 50 Mb/s) for the last 10 month. I can see several reasons for the slow roll out of mobile data in this country. One of them is that the land line based ISP's can't deliver as fast connections as 3G can (in Sweden I get 20 Mb/s down on 3G when i use iPhone as a tethered modem via Bluetooth). In Bkk I get most of the time old dial-up modem speed (256 Kb/s) with TOT and some of the time I get zip. <div><br></div><div>If 3G licenses where to be auctioned to other telecom companies the ADSL customers of TOT, True, 3BB etc would leave like lemmings and then they have to invest gazillions of THB in new infrastructure to stay competitive. So wouldn't it be nice to wait another couple of years for this soon obsolete technology so that the ISP's can suck us ADSL customers dry by delivering inferior internet connections but still charge for premium service? <div><br></div><div>As a reflection on pricing and service my old man just got communal water to his farm in rural Sweden. The city counsel, who are in charge of connecting the pipes to the grid, asked if my dad wanted a fiber thrown in while they were digging the ditches anyway, at self cost for the fiber. He said yes and has now a 100/100 Mb/s fiber optics connection straight in to his PC and pays 1.000 THB/m for it. A DVD-movie takes 5 min to download. Here it takes a week.</div></div>

[Just1Voice]

Cambodia is looking better all the time. Better exchange rate on the U.S. Dollar, I can start and own 100% my own business, and much better technology in regards to internet and phone service, not to mention much less restrictions on visas, i.e. no 90 day reporting, etc. And whether you like Hun Sin or not, at least they have a more stable government than Thailand.

Edited September 23, 2010 by Just1Voice

[RickBradford]

I wish I could have seen all the back-room horse-trading taking place in the lead-up to this decision -- it must have been a veritable Night Of The Brown Envelopes.......

[Cuban]

Car and real estate sales staff scan the papers to see the names of the players in this game maybe they will have some money to spend when this is resolved.

Is Thailand a 3G hub yet?

[backsoon]

What a backwards country we are living in. By the time they sort this out, Laos and Cambodia will be on 4G. Absolutely zero interest in the wellbeing of the public.

Welcome to Amazing Thailand!

Bureaucracy, greed, corruption and fear always stops progress.

I think we need a foreigner prime minister with full arm body guard to take Thailand out of the stone age.

Wrong, wrong and, again, wrong! Thailand is not a backwards country! It is just looking the other way...

Nobody can stop progress. It is just being channeled through the right pockets, oops!, channels.

This country never had a more charming man for a Prime minister. And a farang educated man...

Thais don't need 3G. The less communication, the better. TOT knows...

The rest is true,- Welcome to Amazing Thailand!!!

[peterpan123]

Amazingly backward thinking. I now live in Vietnam after more than a decade in Bangkok. My guess is Saigon is taking over Bangkok is less then 5 years.

Already now there is free internet everywhere - and its fast - I see more I-Phones daily than I ever saw in Bangkok, not # 3 but the newest #4 and 3G is launched as well, but does need some adjustment to work effectively.

Thailand is once again showing their incredibly special sense of "logic"... :-)

[JetsetBkk]

[Sateev]

The headline read, in part: "3G FIASCO HALTED".

Who thinks these thing up? Certainly, it should read :

"3G FIASCO PROLONGED"

And for those whining about how the PM should "do something", "we need a farang PM", etc., I would bet you'd be the first to cry 'Dictator!' if he sent in troops to occupy CAT and TOT, suspended the Constitution, etc., in the name of implementing 3G...

As another, more astute poster stated, it's about checks and balances, and the Constitution. Blame the Thai people for putting up with the corruption for so long, if you must blame someone.

If you learn nothing else, remember, if you want a free society, THE END DOES NOT JUSTIFY THE MEANS.

-S

[sleepyjohn]

Can anyone point me to an overview of this 3g story? I stopped reading the kiddie comics Post and Nation long ago (actually it's not so much them it's what they have to report that's laughable)...

Like to know about the macro picture......and the micro level too (as I may get an iPad or A800 here in CM and am wondering about 3g version or just wifi version).

cheers

Edited September 23, 2010 by sleepyjohn

[hammered]

Interestingly the courts statement that the decision will not affect development has been taking the kind of ire on Thai message boards and even from some Thai media that court announcements dont usually take. Be interesting to see how they react to criticism not of the decison but one of the justifications.

[Estrada]

Well said,

This picture of pigs at a trough reminded me of a certain Thai politician, who remarked during an election campaign that it was their turn at the trough.

Great Picture, very apt.

Of course 3G will go ahead, currently CAT and TOT are only holding it up so that connected politicians and high ups can force their way into a postion in the feeding trough. At the same time no doubt, connected people will have sold their ADVANCE and DTAC shares at a high price in prior knowledge to the injunction being placed. Now the are buying back the shares and you can expect that the 3G dispute will be settled and a handsome profit will be made.

Why do they not just jump to 4G? The answer is the same, this would mean that there would only be one opportunity to make money instead of two.

Estrada