Long awaited and several times postponed 3G auction by the National
Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) saw all three mobile
operators awarded spectrum in an auction criticised as uncompetitive and
underpriced.
So the 3G nightmare is over right
? Not so fast…Do you really believe this ? Thailand 3G debacle has been the
most laughable and ludicrous Thai soap
for several years. Believe it or not but Thailand is actually the only
Asean country without a commercially available 3G offer. Even Laos has one.
The long-delayed 3G service
license auction has made Thailand among the last countries in Southeast Asia to
fully deploy advanced wireless technology. The process has repeatedly been
delayed due mainly to the absence of an independent body to regulate
broadcasting frequencies, as well as changes in state administrations.
3G Give Away: Buy One Get One Free
Now suddenly it appears that not
only the 3G auction is 10 years late (not to say retarded), but it looks like
another “Thai Special Menu” with no competition, odd priced packaged and hand
picked guests. Now the big surprise: the licenses were actually dirt cheap, and
the state body could have scooped up almost 16 billion bath more for the whole
shebang.
Yes you got it right: the state and public companies had
all the cards in hand and it took them 10 years to get ripped off by three
rookies like AIS, TRUE, DTAC (not even a Thai company I was told). Where this
country is going , I m asking you, if good
ol’ state cronies no longer run the game after 10 years of depriving the public
of a technical progress essential to our Facebook and Twitter daily life.
Please do not mess this up again in 2022 for the 4G auction…
Academics and politicians alike
slammed telecom regulators Tuesday for essentially gifting new licences to the
private sector at taxpayer expense. The sale fetched 41.625 billion baht
overall, only 1.125 billion or 2.78% above the reserve price.
The three bidders, all
representing units of mobile operators Advanced Info Service (AIS), Dtac and
TrueMove, each won their maximum quota of 15MHz of spectrum in seven rounds of
bidding that were completed in six hours. Only three of the nine slots
auctioned attracted competition, with six slots, representing 5MHz each,
selling at the minimum reserve price of 4.5 billion baht.
Thailand lost at least Bt16
billion from the Tuesday’s auction of 3G licences organised by the National
Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission NBTC, Thailand Development
Research Institute TDRI president Somkiat Tangkitvanich charged.
Expressing disappointment with
the auction results, he said total bids were only 2.8 per cent higher than the
starting prices set by the NBTC at Bt40.5 billion for nine separate licences.
The total bids were Bt41.65
billion and six licenses were auctioned at the floor price of Bt4.5 billion
each.Though the people will have access to the 3G network from next year, the
damages incurred by the state and taxpayers are estimated at Bt16.335 billion,
Dr Somkiat said, adding that the three bid winners received ‘windfalls’ for the
minimal differences between the auctioned and floor prices, excluding the
discount of annual concession fee to be paid to the government at Bt40 billion.
Describing the bid prices as
incredibly cheap, the TDRI president said each operator will have to pay only
Bt1 billion a year while the fees for 3G service will not be lowered.
It will only boost the operators’
revenue, he said.The three winning operators were Advanced Wireless Network
under Advanced Info Service, DTAC Network under Total Access Communication
DTAC,and Real Future under True Corporation.He said the auction results
confirmed the people’s belief that the NBTC acted in favour of the private
operators, adding that the NBTC’s repeated propaganda about competitions among
bidders was groundless.
Dr Somkiat said the equal
allocations of frequencies to the private operators have deprived competition
and that the NBTC has damaged the country by setting unrealistic floor prices.
Business & Investment Opportunities
YourVietnamExpert is a division of Saigon Business Corporation Pte Ltd, Incorporated in Singapore since 1994. As Your Business Companion, we propose a range of services in Strategy, Investment and Management, focusing Healthcare and Life Science with expertise in ASEAN. Since we are currently changing the platform of www.yourvietnamexpert.com, you may contact us at: sbc.pte@gmail.com, provisionally. Many thanks.
No comments:
Post a Comment