BALANCING SOCIAL BENEFITS AND MARKET COMPETITION IN THAILAND'S MOBILE TELECOMMUNICATIONS INDUSTRY: REGULATORY PERSPECTIVE

Fundamentally, a telecommunications regulator plays a very important role to develop the public's equal, pervasive and reasonably priced access to diverse telecommunications services through modernized networks on a fair competition basis and with efficient use of telecommunications resources to support the national development into an intellectual and creative society, with a view to narrowing the rural-urban disparities, continuingly enhancing the country's competitiveness in terms of telecommunications infrastructure, as well as developing efficient consumer protection measures. In Thailand, the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) is responsible for managing the spectrum for telecommunications services and regulating the telecommunications business. Therefore, it must be very clear that the policy objectives of spectrum assignment are based on the principle of public interest together with free and fair competition. This paper aims to describe how NBTC regulates telecommunications business on balancing competition, social benefits, and consumer protection.