Monday, October 12, 2009

NTC TO SEEK COUNCIL OF STATE OPINION ON AUCTION

       The national telecom regulator will consult the Council of State again over whether it has full legal authority to auction the 3G-2.1GHz spectrum licences.
       The board of the National Telecommu-nications Commission took this decision late last week, its chairman Choochart Phrom-prasit said.
       Many private and state parties have questioned the NTC's authority to grant the 3G licences during the ongoing formation of the new telecom and broadcasting regulator.
       NTC member Sethaporn Cusripituck said the watchdog would continue to proceed with the second public hearing on the auction conditions.
       He declined to say, however, whether the NTC would put off the tentative auction schedule from the planned second week of December in order to wait for the Council of State's opinion.
       He said he was uncertain when the NTC could auction the licences and maybe all it could do was to publish the final auction details in the Royal Gazette after the second public hearing.
       "We're between a rock and a hard place. If we move to auction the licences, we might risk being sued. If we don't, we might face a charge of failing to follow the telecom master plan under which we are to award the 3G licences this year," he added.
       In 2006, the NTC consulted the Council of State for the first time on whether it could draw up a national frequency-allocation table and award new spectrum licences without waiting for the National Broadcasting Commission (NBC) to be set up.
       The council replied that the NTC might be able to refer to the frequency table of the International Telecommunication Union as a guideline for drawing up the spectrum table and allocating the spectra.
       Under the telecom law, both the NTC and the NBC must jointly create the national frequency-allocation table. But in 2005, the Central Administrative Court nullified the process of selecting 14 candidates for the NBC seats, citing the unconstitutionality of the process.
       The Lawyers Council of Thailand last Thursday said the Council of State's first opinion was delivered to the NTC in 2006, before the inception of the 2007 Constitution, under which the Article 47 determines the establishment of the new telecom and broadcasting regulator.
       Early this month, Baker & McKenzie, the legal adviser of True Corp, wrote to warn the NTC that its planned licence auction might be unconstitutional.
       A telecom industry observer said the NTC's weak point was its lack of legal adviser to counsel on the possible legal impact and shortcomings of the licence plan.
       Some state and private parties have said the watchdog's plan to grant licences by auction would favour cash-rich telecom operators - especially those with state foreign shareholders - over smaller firms, and would fully pave the way for foreign firms to snatch the 3G licences, which are regarded as a national asset.

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