NBTC to seek telecom fee at single rate among ASEAN

BANGKOK, August 8 (TNA) - Members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are exploring ways to either lower their telecommunication fees to a single rate or not much different with each other, said Thakorn Tantasit, secretary-general of Thailand’s National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC). Mr Thakorn told participants attending a discussion entitled ‘ASEAN Symposium the Digital Community Leveraging the Internet Economy’ that it is expected that fees on telephone and other forms of telecommunication in the regional bloc would either stay at a single rate or not much different from each other after the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) is implemented at this year-end, aimed at stimulating investment and competition. Noting that telecommunication fees charged in Thailand currently ranked the third cheapest in ASEAN, Mr Thakorn said fees now charged by Singapore are cheapest among ASEAN although the country is considered highly developed among the grouping. He suggested that telecom regulators of each ASEAN member countries should fix the fee at a considerable rate and it is expected that a clearer picture on the issue should be seen early next year. The objective is how to make the telecom fee not too much different from each other, said Mr Thakorn, adding that Prime Minister Gen Prayut Chan-ocha also held talks during the recent Mekong Summit in Japan on the issue in which Japan also agreed with the idea and he, himself, would travel to Japan to discuss the issue soon. NBTC also wants to see an establishment of ASEAN television channel after AEC is implemented, he added. (TNA)