The plan quickly attracted criticism from Advanced Info Service Plc (AIS) and Total Access Communication (Dtac) that such a limitation would destroy the wireless content industry.

"Academy Fantasia 3" will begin airing on Monday. True Move will give away SIM cards to each of the 480,000 existing UBC True subscribers and will distribute an additional 500,000 SIM cards at Bt1 apiece at 7-Eleven stores, he said.

True Move - the country's third-largest cellular operator - has around 4.4 million subscribers.

"Academy Fantasia", which was launched two years ago by UBC True, is the country's most popular reality show, where viewers can vote for and rate their favourite contestants via SMS. All contestants have to compete in a singing contest.

The first two instalments of the show recorded 4 million and 11 million votes, respectively. Each SMS vote for these shows costs Bt6, of which half is shared between UBC True and the participating cellular operators.

However, the cost per vote for this third instalment will be Bt3.

"We want to limit voting rights to only True Move users because we want to emphasise the group's synergy. I think we can do this because we own the show's licence," said True Corp president Supachai Chearavanont.

Thana Thienachariya, chief commercial officer of Dtac - the country's second-largest cellular operator - said the move would destroy the mobile content industry.

"Other cellular operators may adopt the same practice [of limiting the right to vote in shows they have sponsored] to only their mobile-phone users. It's not good for the really eager viewers as they will have to buy several SIM cards if they want to vote in such show," he said.

He said the move was tantamount to blocking the rights of the mobile-phone users.

Somchai Lertsutiwong, vice president for AIS's wireless business, said the strategy would dent the growth of the non-voice market and affect the practice of interoperability of the local telecom industry.

"In principle, all mobile-phone users have freedom to connect or send messages to anyone they want, regardless of their networks," he said. "Next time, if we join with only Dtac in any activity, True Move will have no right to complain to us."

Supachai denied that True Move wanted to promote this blocking and added that AIS had yet to allow True Move and AIS subscribers to send wireless multimedia messages to each other.

"So, you don't call this a 'blocking' [of MMS messages between AIS and True Move subscribers]?" Supachai said.

Somchai said AIS would put off indefinitely the plan to allow MMS messages between AIS and True Move from the next quarter.

Supachai said that True Move would pass all revenue gained from the voting to the voters once the reality show ended on September 9.

Supachai said that out of 11 million votes last year, only 20 per cent were from True Move subscribers. But he believes the limitation would not affect the show as voters would earn the cost back in the form of call bonuses.

UBC True has invested Bt100 million in the "Academy Fantasia" franchise and has already gained more than Bt100 million in revenue from sponsorship.

Usanee Mongkolporn

The Nation