Low-Cost SIM Aimed at Poor

By Srisamorn Phoosuphanusorn, Bangkok Post, Thailand

Feb. 29–The country’s four mobile-phone operators — AIS, DTAC, True Move and Hutch — have responded to government proposals that they reduce costs with a joint plan to offer “Blue Flag” SIM cards.

The low-cost SIM cards would be distributed exclusively by the Commerce Ministry.

Thana Thienachariya, chief commercial officer of second-ranked DTAC, said the cards would feature a single tariff plan targeting low-income customers.

The blue flag for many years has been a symbol for special markets set up periodically by the ministry to sell low-cost food and daily consumer goods.

The mobile operators are scheduled to negotiate with the ministry tomorrow on the viability of the plan and the appropriate tariff rates.

However, Mr Thana said the plan would depend heavily on market leader Advanced Info Service (AIS) as it would result in additional costs for smaller operators such as True Move and Hutch, who already faced operating losses.

He also said discussions would be required to determine whether the plan violates price-dumping laws and favours large operators.

Concerns over network congestion would also be considered.

AIS has 25 million subscribers, DTAC 16 million, True Move 12 million and Hutch about 700,000.

Mr Thana said the Commerce Ministry should ask the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) to consider Blue Flag SIM cards as a universal service obligation (USO).

Co-operation from the two state telecom enterprises, TOT Plc and CAT Telecom, is also needed to decide whether to reduce the operators’ revenue-sharing payments on the special SIM.

Mr Thana said that mobile tariffs in Thailand were already the third cheapest in the world because of heavy competition in the local market.DTAC yesterday introduced “Suriyan Chandra” twin SIM cards, which feature two similar numbers. The Suriyan SIM offers a rate of 50 satang a minute from sunrise to sunset, and calls using the Chandra card are the same rate from 10 pm to 10 am. Calls outside the promotion period are priced at two baht per minute.

Mr Thana said that DTAC expected to see between 10 million and 12 million new mobile-phone subscribers industry-wide this year, compared with 13 million last year.

The company aims to have a 30 percent-35 percent market share of the new users.

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