NTC wants a sweeter deal

The Nation (3 December 2007)

UK consultant 'asking too much for 3G advice'

The national telecom-regulator is asking the UK's Intercon-nection Communications to lower its fee when it hires the consultant to draft the terms and conditions of awarding a 3G broadband cellular spectrum licences.

National Telecommunica-tions Commission (NTC) secretary-general Suranan Wongvi-thayakamjorn said recently that the NTC was price-bargaining with Interconnection Commu-nications but declined to go into details.

He said the licensing body was expected to wrap up the deal with the UK firm this week.
The NTC has a budget of Bt24 million for the consultancy.

"After the signing the company will have to start work immediately and present us with the results in three months," he said.

Interconnection Communi-cations was selected out of six firms the NTC invited to serve as its consultant on drafting the licences. The others were Ovum, Spectrum Strategy, the UK's Analysis, Germany's Detacon and the US firm Nera.

They were short-listed from 18 companies jointly recommended to the NTC by the World Bank and the UN's International Telecommunications Union.

The adviser will help the NTC determine the market demand for 3G services, the appropriate number of spectrum licences, the bandwidth of 3G frequencies to be used, licence fees and licensing regulations.

The 3G spectrum will enable cellular operators to offer bandwidth-hungry content to 3G phone-users at blazing speed.

The allocation of 3G frequency licences has been delayed for years due to the absence of a National Broadcasting Commis-sion (NBC).

The Frequency Allocation Act mandates that NTC and NBC set up a joint panel to allocate telecom and broadcasting frequencies and prescribe their use.

The Council of State cleared the way for the NTC to issue 3G licences by ruling that the NTC could allocate new frequencies but for telecom services only.

However, uncertainty re-mains, given that the new Constitution mandates the establishment of a new single regulator the National Broad-casting and Telecommu-nications Commission (NBTC) to oversee the markets. The frequency-allocation law is also undergoing amendment to support the NBTC formulation.

Despite that, the NTC has moved ahead in drafting the 3G licence regulations in accordance with its plan.