NBTC to decide validity periods of prepaid mobile phone service

The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission is expected to finalise within one month the appropriate validity periods for prepaid mobile-phone service.

Settapong Malisuwan, chairman of the NBTC's telecom committee, said yesterday that the panel had asked cellular operators to send information within seven days about the cost of providing prepaid mobile-phone service to determine the appropriate validity periods.

The committee also appointed a working group comprising representatives from cellular operators and consumers to jointly determine appropriate validity periods of such prepaid mobile-phone service.

The committee sought cooperation from cellular operators that during the next 30 days they should not discontinue the service of prepaid mobile-phone users whose validity periods would end during those 30 days, pending the finalisation of this issue by the NBTC.

The prepaid mobile-phone service refill cards feature various validity periods and call value, such as Bt30 call value with a validity period of three days.

The NBTC telecom committee met with five telecom operators yesterday to discuss many issues, including validity periods, the requirement that cellular operators register new prepaid mobile-phone users, and problems related to portability of mobile-phone numbers.

The committee suggested that the operators improve their portability service.

NBTC commissioner Associate Professor Prasert Silphiphat said the committee asked them to improve their capacity to transfer phone numbers when customers switch providers and expand the portability service nationwide soon for consumer convenience.

Recently, NBTC commissioner Pravit Leesatapornwongsa said some major cellular operators had capped the portability capacity at 2,000 numbers per day, while smaller ones each had capped it at 500 per day.

But Clearinghouse Co, which the five cellular operators jointly set up to provide portability service for them, has total capacity of 40,000 numbers per day.

NBTC regulations on mobile-phone number portability allow users to switch to different networks while retaining their existing numbers.

The telecom committee also asked for cellular operators' cooperation to start registering the 13-digit identity cards of those who buy their new prepaid mobile-phone SIM cards.

The NBTC has regulations requiring cellular operators to collect key personal information of prepaid mobile-phone users. But it has yet to complete the regulations regarding the method of collecting such information.

About 70 million mobile-phone SIM cards are in use in Thailand, of which about 60 million are prepaid mobile-phone SIM cards.

Meanwhile, the NBTC will disband subcommittees that have finished their tasks, including the panel working on its organisational structure and the one studying the impact of Article 46 of the 2010 Frequency Allocation Law on the industry.