Three of Thailand’s mobile phone service providers have submitted “serious requests” for information on the October 16 auction of third-generation (3G) cellular bandwidth.
Advanced Info Service (AIS), Total Access Communication (DTAC) and True were the only three to request the information during an information session for potential bidders held by the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) on Friday, the Nation reported.
Fifteen companies from nine groups have announced their intention to submit bids for 3G services on the 2.1-gigahertz spectrum.
The information requested by the big three focused on the length of a “silent period”, during which potential bidders are banned from releasing information to the public regarding the process in effort to avoid collusion.
The NBTC will announce qualified bidders on October 10, and those who failed will be able to appeal the decision. Winners will be announced on October 22, the NBTC said.
The bids are for nine 4.5 billion-baht chunks of the spectrum, each of which comprise 5MHz of bandwidth. Bidders are allowed to submit up to three applications for a maximum of 15MHz of the share.
AIS and True Corp have taken three applications each, while DTAC and Jasmine Telecom have taken two each.
