Thailand's Administrative Court has rejected a lawsuit that could have blocked the telecoms regulator, the NTC, from issuing 3G licenses. A former union leader at the state-owned telco, TOT has tried to claim that the regulator lacked the authority to issue the licenses.
He had argued that in the absence of another regulator, the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission, the NTC could not allocate radio spectrum in the 2.1Ghz bands. There have been previous attempts by unions to block the award of the licenses based on the lack of quorum at the regulator. Those were overturned when the board of the NTC was finally approved by the government.
Pornchai Meemark was once a powerful union leader for TOT but is now an employee of the company. The court ruled that as he personally did not represent any party that could suffer any impact from the license tender, he couldn't bring a lawsuit against the regulator.
The court also ruled the NTC regulations are mainly rules on licensing to ensure fair competition and are in the interest of the state, as well as guidelines for licensees to follow. The regulations do not affect users of the services, but rather the licensees, it ruled.
The latest draft plan from the regulator for its long-delayed 3G license auction recently raised the reserve price for the 3G licence to Bt12.8 billion (US$393 million), up from Bt10 billion in the original draft. There will be three licenses offered, and if there are any licenses unclaimed, then they will be offered up for sale again within three months.
All three licenses will be for 15-megahertz bandwidth, which will be valid for 15 years.
The regulator has been trying to award 3G licenses for the past couple of years, but the political situation has made it difficult. The regulator had been short of four directors, preventing decisions from being taken, but this has been resolved after the nominees recently secured Royal endorsement.
Several of the networks are already running limited trials of WCDMA networks in the 900Mhz band, but lack of radio spectrum is hampering their deployment.
On the web: Bangkok Post
Article published on 22nd August 2010
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