Sudharma Yoonaidharma, a commissioner of the NTC, said permission for applicants wishing to hire a consultant is required in order to enable the NTC to unload the work of the NTC Office and speed up the licensing process.

Currently the NTC Office alone is tasked with examining applicants' qualifications.

The NTC will apply the new method for the first time when granting type-3 licences to operate international Internet gateways (IIG). If it works well, it will be applied to the granting of other licences. The regulator has already finished drafting the conditions awarding the type-3 IIG licence.

Examinations should be completed within 30 days of the submission of the application form. The NTC will appoint the consultant for the applicants but they have to pay the consultant's fee, Sudharma said.

It will also hold a public hearing on the draft on Wednesday.

Type-3 licences are for companies that provide telecom services with their own networks and whose competition can affect the public at large. On receiving this kind of licence, the licensee has to submit details of the network, its capacity, the bandwidth traffic and the service fee to the NTC's examination every three months.

The NTC recently opened up the IIG market by granting type-2 licences, which are for applicants with or without their own networks but the service is offered to a limited customer group.

Telecom Reporters

The Nation