Thai 3G Frequency Allocation Bill Rushed Through The House

[webfact]

3G

Frequency allocation bill rushed through the House

By Usanee Mongkolporn

The Nation

Senate to vote on Monday as govt bids to speed up reform of lucrative sectors

Government MPs yesterday pushed the national radio frequency allocation bill through the House of Representatives in a fasttrack effort to reform the highly lucrative telecom and broadcasting sectors.

Senate endorsement of the bill, which will lead to the establishment of the National Broadcasting and Telecom Commission (NBTC), is expected on Monday.

The move follows the court’s suspension less than two months ago of plans to auction 3G2.1GHz spectrum licences.

If enacted into law this coming January, the government expects the NBTC to be functioning within 18 months, which is an ambitious timeline considering previous efforts to appoint commissioners.

As the national broadcasting and telecom regulator, the NBTC will be in charge of issuing new licences to use telecom and broadcasting spectra, including those for wireless broadband.

It will therefore play the leading role in reforming Internet broadcasting and telecom markets worth several hundred billion baht annually.

Yesterday, 228 MPs voted for the NBTC bill, with two opposing it and 24 abstaining out of the 268 MPs attending the session.

PM Office’s Minister Satit Wongnongtaey expressed confidence that the process of selecting the NBTC commissioners should be finished within 180 days of the law’s announcement in the Royal Gazzette.

However, telecom and other business executives are less optimistic, saying it will be a timeconsuming process due to the wide range of vested interests and potential financial benefits involved.

Earlier, the minimum auction price for 3G licences was in excess of Bt10 billion each.

It will take at least a year to complete the NBTC commissionerselection process, after which it will be then possible to auction and issue new licences for 3G or newer services, meaning they would not be operational until 2012 at the earliest.

Given the process in setting up the NBTC, the current National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) will effectively be rendered powerless during the transitional period.

The NTC has overseen the broadcasting industry, from community radio to cableTV businesses, on a temporary basis as it was not possible to set up a separate watchdog for the sector.

Telecom operators, whose mobilephone concessions end in the next three to eight years, are waiting for the issuance of new spectrum licences by either the NTC or the NBTC to make sure they still have businesses to run after the concessions expire.

The concession terms of TrueMove, Advanced Info Service (AIS) and Total Access Communication (DTAC) end in 2013, 2015 and 2018, respectively.

The share price of AIS closed at Bt96.75 yesterday, down 0.26 per cent, while that of DTAC closed at Bt43.25, up 1.17 per cent. TrueMove stock ended the day at Bt4.98, up 1.63 per cent.

Satit said the government would push ahead with the plan to convert the mobilephone concessions into NBTC licences in line with the inception of the new regulator.

However, Thana Thienachariya, DTAC head of corporate affairs and strategy, questioned whether the government could achieve its concessionconversion goal due to the complexity of the issue.

After the concessions end, the telecom operators have to transfer their network assets to their concession holders, TOT or CAT Telecom, while their spectra will be returned to the NBTC. Customers will still belong to the telecom operators.

During the NBTC’s formation, the NTC will continue to oversee the telecom and broadcasting industry.

The NTC’s office will submit for Senate consideration this week a shortlist of six candidates for three NTC seats, as the sixyear term of three of its commissioners is ending.

Satit said the Finance Ministry and the Information and Communications Technology Ministry would work together to boost the state telecom agencies’ performance and seek ways for them to financially stand on their own feet after the concessions end. This help would be provided for three years after the frequency allocation law comes into effect.

Vasant Paileeklee, president of the News Broadcasting Council of Thailand, said yesterday at a TOT seminar on the NBTC bill that for broadcasters, it was better to have the law coming into effect than to have nothing at all. The NBTC will put the broadcasting industry in order, he added.

Telecom scholar Anupap Tiralap said at the same seminar that the law would affect all parties, given that it mandates the allocation of telecom and broadcasting spectra via the auction process. Only cashrich firms will have a good chance of winning licences.

NTC member Sudharma Yoonaidharma said that once the frequency allocation law took effect, it would set a clear direction for the industry and make it more attractive to investors.

Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij said during the House debate on the bill that the law was the key to bringing in telecom and broadcasting reform.

Wichien Mektrakarn, chief executive of AIS, said he expected it would take 18 months to finish the NBTC commissionerselection process, and that the NBTC would begin to grant the licences in 2013.

-- The Nation 2010-11-11

[laocowboy2]

2012! And from the timelines mentioned, it looks like late 2012 at the earliest. This is a disgrace - how can Thailand try to project itself as a location for companies to base their regional HQs when basic telecoms infrastructure lags so far behing other countries in the region?

[SomTumTiger]

Total number in the House 475. Total in attendance to vote for this hugely important piece of legislation - 268. Missing? 207 PTP Opposition ass clowns. They should be removed from office immediately. Anyone care to defend these mouth breathers in the PTP?

[SomTumTiger]

2012! And from the timelines mentioned, it looks like late 2012 at the earliest. This is a disgrace - how can Thailand try to project itself as a location for companies to base their regional HQs when basic telecoms infrastructure lags so far behing other countries in the region?

Oh please, people do business in Thailand for cheap labor, not because their internet is so fast... yawn

[laocowboy2]

2012! And from the timelines mentioned, it looks like late 2012 at the earliest. This is a disgrace - how can Thailand try to project itself as a location for companies to base their regional HQs when basic telecoms infrastructure lags so far behing other countries in the region?

Oh please, people do business in Thailand for cheap labor, not because their internet is so fast... yawn

So busy yawning that you did not read the post correctly.

I was talking about the effort to lure regional headquarters using tax and various other incentives such as easier expat work permits (program brought in under Taksin but still in place I believe). As the term implies, these are administrative offices managing operations accross the whole ASEAN region - and therefor (a) cheap labour is hardly an attraction given the calibre of staff needed and ( good communications (including the internet) is very important. In a previous job we chose Singapore over Bangkok partlyfor those reasons.

Thailand needs more high quality jobs, not just more jobs. Poor comms does not help.