Thai NBTC to relax per-second 4G billing condition

Thailand’s telecoms regulator has relaxed an earlier directive requiring per-second billing for 4G services to only require operators to bill half of a service on a per-second basis.

The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission’s (NBTC) telecoms committee has decided to change the directive to no longer require operators to charge entirely on a per-second basis.

Although the initial per-second requirement was introduced May last year, the NBTC has yet to enforce it because it has proven unpopular with affected operators.

Operators have been resisting the move to per-second billing on the grounds that it would unfairly penalize customers that have signed up to fixed allocation or unlimited call or data plans, stating that charging per second would cost heavy usage customers more than the bucket plans.

The NBTC requirements would cap 4G tariff rates at 1.13 satang ($0.0003) per second. The requirements were a condition of the 4G mobile broadband licenses issued to AIS and TrueMove last year. Second-ranked Dtac is not required to comply.

AIS has reportedly warned that the company would have to abolish their existing tariff plans if the directive is enforced, while True Move is appealing the directive in court.