Meanwhile, Natee Sukonrat, chairman of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission’s broadcasting committee, yesterday said Mono Broadcast, operator of the Mono 29 digital TV channel, would not be affected by JASMBB’s failure to make its initial upfront licence-fee payment because the two are completely different corporate entities.

TrueMove H Universal Communication (TUC) and JASMBB were the two winners of licences to the 900-megahertz telecom spectrum at an NBTC auction last December.

Suphachai said this year was expected to be a tough time for True’s mobile-phone service after its heavy investment in the 1,800MHz and 900MHz bands and network expansion but he hoped the business would become profitable next year.

A telecom analyst expects that by the end of this year, Advanced Info Service’s market share will be 51.1 per cent in terms of revenue, down from 52 per cent last year, followed by Total Access Communication (DTAC) at 27.5 per cent, down from 28 per cent. True’s share this year is expected to be 21.4 per cent, up from 19.4 per cent.

The analyst forecast that True would beat DTAC in 2018 in market share with 24 per cent, compared with DTAC’s 23 per cent.

As of last year AIS had 38.5 million subscribers, while DTAC had 25.3 million and True 19.1 million.

Qualifications examined

JASMBB is a subsidiary of Jasmine International (Jas). The NBTC telecom committee will examine the qualifications of Jas’s broadcasting, telecom and TV businesses, according to its recent resolution after JASMBB’s failure to pay the first instalment of its 900MHz licence fee.

The committee on Wednesday resolved to set up a working panel to consider how it will proceed next in the JASMBB case.

Natee said JASMBB was not a telecom-licence holder but only the winning bidder in an auction for that licence. Once it failed to pay the upfront fee, the NBTC could revoke its rights as the bid winner, not the rights of a licence holder.

Mono Broadcast is a subsidiary of Mono Technology, a company listed on the Stock Exchange of Thailand whose majority share, 71.99 per cent, is held by Pete Bodharamik. Pete is chairman of Mono Technology and Jas’s largest shareholder, with 25.85 per cent.

According to Jas, its legal adviser has opined that the Bt644-million deposit placed by JASMBB before the auction will be forfeited. However, JASMBB and Jas group will not be liable for any additional compensation, since the NBTC auction rules did not require that the winning bidders be responsible for any additional compensation apart from the auction deposit.

The telecom committee plans to call for new bids for the 900MHz slot forfeited by JASMBB, possibly on June 24 and at the possible starting bid of Bt75.65 billion, the final price JASMBB offered. TUC can also take part in the auction, the committee says. All these proposals will be put to public hearings.

According to Pacharasut Sujarittanonta, former member of the NBTC teams that prepared the auctions of the 2.1-gigahertz, 900MHz and 1,800MHz spectra, the chance that winning bidders would default on their licence payments would be low if the NBTC set a heavy penalty for such cases, including requiring the bidders to place higher guarantees in proportion to their bids.

However, this would be difficult as long as the NBTC prohibited the bidders from communicating with anyone outside the bidding rooms, making it impossible for them to call out to their companies to ask for higher guarantees, said Pacharasut, who is also a lecturer in Chulalongkorn University’s faculty of economics.

He said the final bids offered at the previous 900MHz licence auction should not be used as the start-up prices in the new bidding round. The final offers by the unsuccessful bidders AIS and DTAC – Bt75.976 billion and Bt70.180 billion respectively – reflected the value of the spectrum itself plus the value of deterring JASMBB from become a new competitor.

But in the new round, the prospective bidders should be expected to offer prices that reflect only what they think the spectrum itself is worth. Therefore, if the minimum starting bid is set at Bt75.65 billion, this will discourage prospect bidders from joining the fray.

He opposed the idea of TUC taking part in the new round, to prevent any single party from hoarding spectrum bandwidth.