Minister puts brakes on 3G
Foreigners favoured, TOT and CAT suffer
- Published: 5/10/2009 at 12:00 AM
- Newspaper section: Business
The long-delayed auction of third-generation (3G) mobile broadband licences scheduled for mid-December could be put on hold indefinitely if Ranongruk Suwunchwee has her way.
The Information and Communications Technology (ICT) minister wants the auction put off as long as possible, reasoning that the conditions deter state telecom enterprises and favour foreign players.
"These conditions discourage TOT and CAT Telecom but pave the way for foreign players to freely bid and grab our national resources," Mrs Ranongruk said after meeting executives of both state telecoms over the weekend.
She said the 3G draft terms from the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) state that a qualified bidder must be a Thai entity or have foreign partners holding not more than 49% under the Telecom Business Law. Bidders must possess spectrum in the range from 1.9 to 2.1 Gigahertz.
The minister said that the TOT subsidiary Thai Mobile owned the 1.9 GHz spectrum and planned to launch the first phase of its 3G services in December with 500 base stations. TOT is also planning to invest 20 billion baht for a nationwide network.
CAT Telecom, she said, was disqualified under the current 3G auction rules because it has the Finance Ministry as a major shareholder, the same as TOT.
Mrs Ranongruk said she would outline her views today to the NTC, which plans an event to celebrate its fifth anniversary, at which Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva is to be a guest speaker.
She warned both TOT and CAT Telecom could go bankrupt if 3G licences are awarded under the current conditions.
Telecom analysts say private operators could form new entities to bid for 3G licences, and then shift their existing customers to the new 3G services. This would allow them to reduce the revenue-sharing payments that are the financial lifeblood of the concession owners, TOT and CAT.
TOT chairman Teerawut Boonyasophon said that since TOT and CAT contributed large sums of their concession revenue to government coffers, the NTC should not think only of the money it could make from foreign bidders alone.
But NTC chairman Gen Choochart Promprasit insisted the regulator could not put off the auction because it was its duty under the Telecom Business Law.
He also said that the Council of State had offered a legal interpretation that the NTC could allocate frequency since the National Broadcasting Commission, which is supposed to have that duty, has never been formed.
However, if the cabinet asked the NTC to put off the auction, its board would have to consider the matter seriously, he acknowledged.
Advanced Info Service chief executive Wichien Mektrakarn said that what Mrs Ranongruk was doing was inappropriate and was interfering with the industry's growth.
He said TOT had 3G spectrum long before any other operator but had failed to add value to the resource, and that CAT Telecom also had a CDMA service that could be developed into 3G. "It would be very ugly if the ICT minister does as she plans," he said.
"As private operators, we might have to team up against it."
True Corp, however, also opposes the current 3G auction terms because it says they favour its two rivals, AIS and DTAC, which have foreign partners while True is Thai-owned.
About the author
- Writer: Komsan Tortermvasana
- Position: Business Reporter
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