The telecom regulator will strictly monitor the traffic of all cellular operators following consumer complaints of difficulties calling both among the same network and to other networks.
"We'll monitor network quality from time to time and without warning," National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) deputy secretary-general Prasert Apipunya said yesterday.
New member Suranan Wongvithayakamjorn said any cellular operator found providing poor service would be required to explain the reason to the NTC and solve the problem.
The private cellular operators have given assurances that smaller budgets for network expansion and improvement this year will not affect the quality of their networks and that their networks have sufficient capacity to serve users.
Total Access Communication (DTAC) has kept its capital-expenditure budget at last year's level of Bt6 billion so it can invest in third-generation broadband.
Advanced Info Service (AIS) has earmarked Bt6.2 billion for capital expenditures this year, an all-time low given the limited market growth forecast at only 3 million to 4 million subscribers this year.
True Move has targeted capital expenditures of only Bt3 billion to Bt4 billion this year.
AIS, DTAC and True Move have 28.8 million, 19.7 million 15.8 million subscribers, respectively, while Hutchison CAT Wireless Multimedia has more than 1 million.
