Published on June 27, 2005

After eight months of work, the seven members of the National Telecommunications Commis-sion (NTC) said last week that they now “stood on firm ground” and were ready to speed up market reform.

Asked by The Nation to do a self-evaluation, the commissioners said they were satisfied with what they had achieved since taking office last October amid telecom industry hopes that they could reform the market quickly.

“We’ve worked hard since day one. Don’t forget that we just got our secretary in March of this year to manage the internal work and staff. So we officially started working four months ago, when the secretary took office,” said commissioner Sethaporn Cusripituck.

He admitted that one initial obstacle was the commissioners' failure to agree on several issues.

“But we have no bad feeling toward one another. If so, we would have not been able to finish the telecom master plan we presented to the public early this month,” said commissioner Prasit Prapinmongkolkarn, who led the drafting of the numbering plan and telecom master plan.

Commissioner Rianchai Reowilaisuk, recently assigned to draft the regulations on interconnection charges, said that another impediment was that telecom firms have pressured the NTC to intervene in their existing concession contracts, which are bilateral agreements between them and their state concession owners.

The telecoms want the NTC to convert their concession contracts into licences, and to free them from obligations such as the concession-fee payment.

Commission chairman Choochart Phromprasid added that another obstacle was the limited skill of its staff. Out of 440 employees transferred from the Post and Telegraph Department, which is now the NTC’s office, nearly half did not have a bachelor’s degree and most had little or no telecoms industry knowledge.

“But I think we have already overcome many obstacles and stand on firm ground now. We’ll move faster after this,” he said.

Commissioner Sudharma Yoonaidharma said that people think the commissioners are like ministers, who can order anybody by just pointing their fingers. “We have to follow the regulations, and by strictly adhering to the regulations, nobody can bribe us,” he said.

Boonklee Plangsiri, Shin Corp’s chief executive, said the NTC has moved on track. He rated the NTC with a B+ when asked by The Nation to score its performance.

After the NTC’s awarding of the first Internet licence last week, some telecom executives have begun to feel more positive toward the regulator.

Supachai Chearavanont, president of True Corp Plc, said that it was surprising that the NTC could award the licence on schedule.

“I thought it would be further delayed. The awarding signalled the dawn of better things to come. But I’ll wait to see if the commission can do even better.”

Another industry insider said that the NTC must prove that it can effectively and honestly enforce all its regulations.

Most executives said the NTC’s top priority should be to convert concession contracts, followed by awarding new licences. Promoting new technology, such as third-generation mobile-phone technology (3G), should be its lowest priority, they said.

Telecom Reporters

The Nation

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