According to the local news (will post source later), the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) is ordering the NBTC to put the following 4 projects on hold.

• The auctions of 1800MHz and 900MHz spectrums in August and November
• Universal Service obligation (USO) project
• The plan to give away cash coupons to subsidise set top box of digital TV.

Ouch this could be painful for telco’s:

• They can’t prepare for rising bandwidth usage
• ADVANC has the smallest bandwidth amongst all 3 b/c its 1800 MHz concession expired last year and its 900MHz is due to expire in September 2015. So they only have 15MHz bandwidth of the 2.1GHz if the auctions are delayed beyond 2015.
• TRUE hasn’t migrated all of its 2G customers yet from the 1800MHz spectrum because they could, in theory, keep the customers on 2G even if the auction is delayed.
• DTAC? Seem to be in the best position, they have the largest bandwidth and longest 2G concession.
• So total bandwidth #’s are: ADVANC 17.5 MHz; TRUE 30MHz; DTAC 75MHz

Now will they be postponed forever? No, of course, This Is Thailand, they’ll figure something out, and re-start the auction before any of telco’s suffer.