The reform includes the ministry’s plan to bring the existing licensed Thaicom 7 and 8 satellites into the concession regime.

Currently both satellites operate under the single licence of the licensing system of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC).

The minister will meet with the State Enterprise Policy Office and the National Economic and Social Development Board to discuss having the Thaicom 7 and 8 satellites operate under concession contracts and |get them to comply with the law, including the Public-Private Join Venture Act of 2013.

He has to clear issues with the Thaicom 7 and 8 satellites first and submit the results for the Cabinet’s consideration.

The ministry recently proposed to the Cabinet that both satellites will have to comply with the ministry’s concession regime as the satellite concession regime still existed. It is not until 2021 that the concession regime expires.

As part of the ministry’s proposal, once the concession contract ends, the ministry will set the new satellite regulations and will ask the satellite operator to enter into an agreement based on the new requirements.

The new requirements might include the issue of national security and the number of transponders the satellite operator will have to allocate to the state for use free of charge.

Thailand’s satellite industry has operated on the concession regime since day one and before the NBTC got off the ground several years ago and granted the satellite licences.

The Thaicom 5 and 6 and iPSTAR satellites operate under the concession regime.

The life span of iPSTAR and Thaicom 5 will end when the concession ends in 2021, while Thaicom6 will outlast the concession by eight years.

Thaicom pays 20.5 per cent of its revenue for the annual concession fee to the ICT Ministry and the rate will rise to 22.5 per cent during the last five years of the concession.

The Thaicom 7 and 8 satellites cost Thaicom 5.25 per cent of its annual revenue to operate.

Thaicom 6 was launched in January 2014, Thaicom 7 in September 2014, and Thaicom 8 in May 2016.

Recently, the ICT Ministry hired the Thammasat University Research and Consultancy Institute to study government demand for satellite transponders and found that state agency demand is expected to rise between 3 per cent and 5 per cent per year.

Currently all state agencies including the military and the medical and education department use a total of 3.75 transponders of C band and 2.5 transponders of Ku band and use two gigabytes per second of Ku band. Thaicom has allocated one satellite transponder for free state use.