The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission submitted for the junta’s consideration yesterday the pros and cons on the AWN proposal to the NBTC’s telecom committee on Monday that it award a 900-megahertz licence to AWN. The company says it is willing to pay Bt75.654 billion for the slot, the same price that Jas Mobile Broadband quoted to win this band at an auction last December.

Prayut said the government’s decision on this case would be based on the country’s interest and legal principles. The government will assign the Council of State and Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam to look into the matter.

Wissanu said AWN would have to be held responsible for the compensation if it makes the request to buy the licence but later changes its mind.

AWN, a subsidiary of Advanced Info Service (AIS), proposed to the telecom regulator on Monday that it award a 900MHz licence to AWN, which is willing to pay Bt75.654 billion for the band. If the NBTC agrees to the proposal, AWN will hold a shareholders’ meeting to ask for approval to buy the licence, but it could take two months to arrange such a meeting.

AIS’s share price yesterday plunged 6.86 per cent to close at Bt163. Investors are evidently concerned that the telecom giant’s earnings could be affected if it really buys the licence at such hefty price.

The NBTC called in AIS chief executive officer Somchai Lertsutiwong yesterday to talk about the compensation AIS would have to pay if it later decides not to buy the licence after all.

According to Total Access Communication CEO Lars Norling, DTAC currently has a very strong spectrum portfolio of 50MHz and it is confident about getting the bandwidth it needs to serve customers by 2018.

“On AWN’s willingness to pay Jas’s price for the 900MHz slot, we haven’t seen the alleged letter. DTAC will have to discuss this with its board before commenting,” he said.

At the December auction, Jas and True Corp subsidiary TrueMove H Universal Communication (TUC) each won a slot on the 900MHz band. But Jas defaulted on the initial instalment of the upfront fee, prompting the NBTC to plan a second auction for that slot.

AWN and DTAC TriNet of DTAC were the unsuccessful bidders in the December auction.

The NBTC members also approved the rules of the new auction yesterday, voting 5-3 to ban TUC from taking part in this new round of bidding to prevent the possibility of the company monopolising the market for fourth-generation wireless broadband.

Two commissioners were absent from the meeting yesterday.

The vote overturned the telecom committee’s previous resolution that TUC could join the auction.

A majority of the commissioners also approved the minimum starting bid of Bt75.65 billion. The bidders can raise the price by Bt152 million per round. The auction is to be held on June 24.

True has insisted that it would have to be compensated if the final bid in this new auction is lower than what Jas offered in December