BANGKOK, 23 January 2013 Officials from the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) have inspected the sale of prepaid cards and new prepaid numbers in mobile phone shops in Siam Paragon in order to make sure mobile operators abide by its rules.
The NBTC officials, along with executives of AIS, DTAC, and True Move, visited J-Mart, True, DTAC, and AIS shops in the shopping mall to make sure all prepaid cards are sold under the NBTC’s regulations. The NBTC has recently demanded that the sale of prepaid SIM cards must be properly registered, carry no expiry date, and be charged at no more than 99 satang per minute.
NBTC commissioner Suthipol Thaweechaikarn said as the expiration period of prepaid cards is not yet finalized, mobile operators cannot impose an expiry date for the moment. He added an operator had proposed to the NBTC a 60-day expiration period, but he expected other operators to come up with a better timeframe.
In addition, operators are required to register personal details of prepaid customers, while the call charge must not exceed 99 satang per minute. Since the new regulations were applied on January 18th, there have been over 700 complaints, mostly about the operators imposing prepaid credit expiry deadline.
