A strange thing happened last week. The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) was given a challenging, unique problem to solve. And in less than a day, the NBTC effectively solved it. The commission acted decisively. In little more than a few hours of focused work, the NBTC had accomplished the considerable task of securing free World Cup broadcasts for the whole country. So the question is, why can't the NBTC perform that well as a matter of course?
The entire drama of the World Cup can be laid at the feet of the NBTC. The purchase of World Cup broadcasting rights for Thailand occurred in 2005. That was in the early days, when the country had a National Broadcasting Commission and a National Telecommunications Commission, many members of which now are on the NBTC. They knew that RS International Broadcasting and Sports Management Co Ltd owned those rights. Yet after 2010, the NBTC pursued what we now know is illegal.
Rather than try to make a deal with the rights owner, the NBTC instead claimed it had the right to pass a new regulation and simply take them away. It passed what now is known as the "must have" rule, meaning that public TV must have access to seven events judged important by the NBTC — although not by parliament or referendum. The World Cup is one, and from the time it was formed in 2010, until last Tuesday when the Supreme Administrative Court decided against it, the NBTC believed it could simply seize RS International's property.
In the meantime, the NBTC lost many verdicts in an equally important court — the court of public opinion. Its most infamous mess was the auction for 3G phone services. After seeing how the NTC mismanaged the initial attempt, the NBTC dithered for years. Every country in the region and most countries in the world were already using smartphones at 3G or even 4G speeds by the time the NBTC managed to stage its auction. And then it so bungled the process that the media and the public lambasted it for losing money in a sale where it held all the cards.
Its process of upgrading to 4G also faces criticism. While phone companies have got on with the job of moving their systems to the newer, more reliable and faster data service, the NBTC is still trying to set up a bandwidth auction. Laos is going into its third year of using 4G systems. The Thai regulator is dithering over how to run an auction.
The latest controversy concerns the mysterious Facebook outage last month, which NBTC said was caused by technical glitches. When Telenor — DTAC's major shareholder — later revealed the cause was state intervention, they faced stern warnings, resulting in the companies apologising for damaging the public image of the NBTC and the National Council for Peace and Order.
Yet last Wednesday, with just a day to make a World Cup deal, the NBTC — despite public complaints over the bureaucratic maze — proved its efficiency. When military authorities suggested it make a deal on public broadcasts of the World Cup, the NBTC intervened with RS and found agreement and the necessary funds within hours.
The commission showed it can make events happen decisively with strong supervision. So it is time the commission be made more accountable to either the next government or an oversight board of some sort. Supervision of the NBTC obviously can produce quick, positive responses, exactly what the public needs in these days of instant communication.