The proposal has been made by the assembly's committee on IT and communications, chaired by Suphat Phoophaka.

It covers six main points concerning the establishment of a merged regulatory body and its powers, including a provision that the two state telecom agencies, TOT and CAT Telecom, be deprived of their supervisory powers over concessionaires.

The committee has proposed that the law on frequency allocation be amended to allow the establishment of a legal entity with regulatory powers to cover both telecommunications and radio and television broadcasting. It has suggested a board of nine members, consisting of two experts on broadcasting, two experts on telecommunications and five representatives from other fields to serve a five-year term.

The committee believes the new body should not be given the power to set policies, as this power properly belongs to the elected government. The new body should, therefore, be given only regulatory powers.

The committee said the process of selecting commissioners must be improved, as well as the evaluation and dismissal process. It has suggested that the Senate should hold the power to evaluate and dismiss commissioners for wrongdoing, and there should be a mechanism for disseminating information on the commission's operations for the sake of transparency and to give the general public a higher responsibility.

It said the law should clearly stipulate the rights of concessioned companies in setting up network interconnection arrangements and charging interconnection fees based on operating costs.