A DTAC source complained yesterday that the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) lacked flexibility in allocating new cellular phone numbers, making it difficult for operators to expand their market share and draw up long-term sales plans.

The NTC gave 1.5 million numbers each to AIS, DTAC and True Move just last month. But they had wanted three million each.

Thana Tienachariya, DTAC chief commercial officer, said his company had finished inputting last month's numbers in its sales and inventory system. It rang up sales of about 500,000 numbers per month last quarter.

The operators can request more phone numbers only when they are down to 50,000 free numbers, according to NTC regulations.

Last quarter, DTAC and AIS signed up 1.45 million and 1.56 million subscribers respectively, while True Move added 559,000.

A telecom source said True Move might not be in a hurry to get more numbers, as it needs time to process the 1.5 million it received last month. Out of the total of 40 million cellphone users, over 20 million belong to AIS, more than 12 million to DTAC and over 8 million to True Move.

Telecom Reporters

The Nation