NBTC request to reduce charges has been disregarded

3 of Thailand big smartphone operators have brushed off asks from the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) for reduced access charges, maintaining that their recent prepaid discount Covid-19 pandemic services are appropriate to relieve the consumer burden, with up to 30% cuts in fees.

Their determination was expressed when the operators met with the NBTC on Wednesday at the behest of the NBTC to negotiate the lowering of service costs in order to assist public assistance.

NBTC Secretary-General Takorn Tantasith said the Organisation would hold talks with the operators again on Thursday to hear their argument by their assistance deals being sufficient.

Previously, the NBTC demanded that all major mobile providers offer incentive packages for prepaid customers with up to 30% lower fees.

The switch is also expected to help operate from home-based initiatives that have been commonly embraced after the crisis.

In the case of postpaid services, the regulator also requests operators to stretch the time period for settlement of bills to three months in order to ease the problems between users without making their internet service shut off. Service collections will usually only be postponed for two months.

Mr Takorn said the three operators on Wednesday insisted that they have recently rolled out a range of packages intended to help people work from home with extra options and lower service charges by 10-30% relative to the previous ones.

The firms said that they allowed postpaid consumers with clear payment history to stretch the payment of bills to three months during the crisis.

Despite this, Mr Takorn said that the NBTC would like to call for support to encourage all postpaid users to extend the payment of bills to three months.

“The operators’ members have said that they need to put the problem to the executives for consideration before addressing the NBTC,” he said.

According to the NBTC Secretary-General, the operators have clarified that they have no concerns if postpaid customers move to prepaid networks to be eligible for promotional packages.

Last Friday, the NBTC launched a program to allow mobile users to register for 10 gigabytes of free mobile data. The scheme, funded by the NBTC, will last for a month.

The program faced backlash from social media operators seeking incentives from the NBTC.

Mr Takorn disagreed that operators were getting preferential treatment, saying that operators would only receive 100 baht per request from the NBTC and that 10GB packages would be more costly on a daily basis.

 

SOURCE: Bangkok Post

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