Thailand’s three telecommunications operators are honoring a price reduction requirement for their 3G services on the 2.1 gigahertz (GHz) spectrum, a senior official of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) said last week.
Thakorn Tantasith, NBTC secretary general, said the three companies were instructed to lower fees for voice and non-voice services at no less than 15 percent, as imposed in the licenses granted to them on December 7 last year.
The three operators are Advanced Wireless Network (AWN), DTAC Network (DTN) or TriNet, and Real Future (RF).
Thakorn said AWN and RF lowered their 3G service fees on 2.1 GHz at 15 percent while DTN offered price reduction up to 29 percent.
In August, fees for voice service were Bt0.58-0.72/minute, a reduction from the required rate of Bt0.82/minute, or about 10-27 percent, while internet or non-voice service were set to Bt0.15-0.26/minute, lower than the required rate of Bt0.28/minute, or about 7-46 percent.
He said the 15 percent fee decrease for voice and non-voice services are applied only to users of 3G mobile phones on 2.1 GHz spectrum. There are currently 11 million 3G on 2.1 GHz users from a total of 90 million users nationwide. Those using 2G and 3G services are not entitled to the price incentives.
