Dysfunctional campaign | Bangkok Post: tech

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Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva announced that he expects third generation phone service before New Year's Eve; he then announced why there probably won't be any; in a speech to mark the fifth anniversary of the Magnificent Seven National Telecommunications Commission, Mr Abhisit set out the conflicting criteria he expects to see in Asia's last, most dysfunctional 3G campaign: service before the end of the year after fair bandwidth auctions that favour small Thai telecom operators; on one hand, "3G services can no longer be postponed," he insisted, but on the other, the NTC must bias bidding to favour a more competitive structure; the English translation of this speech: DTac of Norway and AIS of Shingapore have way too much market power now and 3G contracts must show that.

Information and Communications Technology Minister explained that Mr Abhisit was way out of line in calling for 3G phone service in Thailand by the end of the year; the highly dynamic Ranongruk Suwunchwee said that the auction for 3G service should be postponed indefinitely, but certainly until at least 2010; the minister patiently diagrammed the truth for Mr Abhisit, showing that any auction before next year would favour "foreign players" (translation: DTac and AIS) while dealing setbacks to the telecoms duopoly of your ToT and your CAT Telecom; after hearing the minister's clear (as always) and expert (as always) statement, Mr Abhisit said, "I have sympathy for the NTC in carrying out this complicated work," and went back to his office.

No 1 yuppiephone network Advanced Info Service of Shingapore announced plans to add a bit of 3G services to its roaming service, and the roof almost fell in; CEO Wichian Mektrakarn said he would contract with your ToT in a joint venture, to pick up the little 3G service available in Bangkok for its customers; five companies already in partnership with ToT went ape, with one of them threatening to simply drop out of the ToT partnership, although he demanded that the media not identify him; all five firms operate as so-called mobile virtual network operators (MVNO), selling 3G service although they do not physically operate the networks; Suroj Lamsam, the executive president for vice of the Loxley MNVO, allowed that interest and subscriber levels in 3G were low anyhow, and barely worthwhile.

Speaking of foreign companies, the Japanese Internet firm Rakuten bought a controlling 67 percent of Thailand's largest e-commerce portal; the online shopping service TARAD Dot Com, which claims to have two million users buying 1.4 million items from 160,000 merchants, will be directly controlled by three senior Rakuten executives to be flown in for the jobs; it's all about the scale - Rakuten.co.jp has 60 million users able to buy 40 million products from 30,000 merchants; executives of Tarad.com and Rakuten were so excited they forgot to mention the sale price.

Sixty four percent of Thais favour nuclear energy but 66 percent insist they be in other Thais' provinces; that was the result of a poll on nuclear energy conducted on behalf of the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand; Egat has hired a consulting firm to conduct studies on plants currently planned to be opened starting in 2020; deputy governor Somboon Arayasakul lauded alternative energy projects throughout the country but said there was no way they would supply enough electricity; Egat has carefully refrained from specifying any province or site as its preferred spot for the first plant.

Marine scientist Suchana Chavanich left on a four-month trip to study the impact of climate change in Antarctica; the 37-year-old Chulalongkorn University lecturer was chosen as part of the Japanese Antarctic Research Expedition, along with 80 colleagues, almost all of them Japanese.

The government said it was considering paying operators of biomass and biogas power even more subsidies in cash because of the increasing cost of fuel for the plants; Energy Minister Wannarat Channukul said the plants were using renewable energy sources, but that it wasn't cheap; typically, such power plants use waste from paddy rice, rubber, palm oil and cane, and operators claim credibly that owners of the garbage have jacked up the prices, as much as 1,000 percent.