Today marks 1,000 Days Since a Telecom Watchdog Vanished

It has been 1,000 days since the two telecom operators, True Corporation and Total Access Communication (DTAC) officially merged in Thailand (March 1, 2023), forging Southeast Asia’s largest telecom behemoth in a deal valued at over $8 billion – and now also recognized as 1,000 days of regulatory slumber.

In the shadow of Thailand’s glittering skyscrapers and temples, where telecom towers pierce the humid sky like digital sentinels, Thailand’s telecommunications landscape has transformed from a vibrant, if imperfect, triad of operators into a suffocating duopoly.

Advanced Info Service (AIS) and the newly minted True (now absorbing DTAC’s legacy) control every byte of data flowing through the nation’s veins.

This merger, “acknowledged” by the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) with a flurry of promises and bling bling, was sold as a solution for infrastructure upgrades and innovation. But instead, it has delivered higher bills, stagnant service quality, and no competition.

The NBTC, tasked with safeguarding competition and consumers, has abdicated its role, allowing its own conditions meant to reduce the merger’s negative impact to be completely forgotten and never enforced. No fines. No audits. No accountability.

As Thailand’s digital economy is slipping closer to being the worst in Southeast Asia (only ahead of Myanmar)—the NBTC is supporting a duopoly that prioritizes profits over people.

This feature article unravels the merger’s tangled history, dissects the unfulfilled conditions, charts the post-merger fallout on prices and quality, and exposes how the duopoly has devoured market share while MVNOs (Mobile Virtual Network Operators) lie in ruins.

We’ll spotlight the “smoking gun” of MVNO Services (MVNA), a cautionary tale of regulatory capture. And we’ll confront the darker underbelly: how the regulator’s lack of enforcement on the duopoly fuel cross-border scams, and put the burden on everyone else instead.

Finally, we’ll chart a path forward – because 1,000 days of inaction is 1,000 too many.

On October 20, 2022, Thailand crossed a regulatory Rubicon. With a 3–2 vote that shattered public trust and ignited one of the most contentious debates in the country’s regulatory history, the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) chose to “acknowledge” the merger between True Corporation and DTAC instead of approving or rejecting it.

This simple administrative verb “acknowledge” would become the legal loophole through which a full-scale market transformation took place.

Today, Thailand stands fully transformed. Not into the vibrant, competitive, low-cost digital economy the NBTC repeatedly promised, but into the very scenario opponents warned about: a rigid, entrenched duopoly dominated by AIS and the newly merged True Corporation.

Prices are higher, options are fewer, MVNOs are dead, and the regulator built to protect the public has spent nearly three years defending its own inaction while shielding the operators from consequences.

This is the story of how a regulator’s failure — not a market force, not a technological inevitability — created a duopoly that millions of consumers now pay for every month. It is a story of warnings ignored, conditions unenforced, and public trust squandered. And it is a story that begins with one of the most legally controversial decisions in modern Thai regulatory history.

To understand the magnitude of the NBTC’s decision, we must revisit what lead to it.

The true impetus for the deal was made 8,674 km away in Norway. By 2019, Telenor (owner of DTAC) had decided Thailand—along with many other of its operations in Asia—was no longer deemed worthy of its presence and the company was desperately looking for an exit.

One option was to sell the entire business to AIS. But even AIS was wary of such a deal, which would immediately create a market monster controlling over 70% of the subscriber base, a concentration level that AIS understood no Thai regulator would ever formally approve.

Telenor’s then CEO Sigve Brekke (now Group CEO of the merged entity) grew weary of waiting on a viable path with AIS and instead turned to True Corporation. The problem was immediate and financial: with a net debt exceeding THB 230 billion and no annual profit since 2016, True did not have the financial means to purchase DTAC outright.

Instead, the “equal merger” was invented, which would let Telenor cash out most of its investment while keeping a stake and board seat.

Public story: Two underdogs joining forces to challenge AIS and fund the digital future.

However, the reality was that the deal was primarily an expedient exit for Telenor, all dressed up as a synergistic merger. During the deal’s negotiation “regulatory risk mitigation” appears to have ranked near the very bottom of the synergy list.

When True and DTAC announced their intention to merge on November 22, 2021, Thailand was a four-player mobile market. It was not a perfect market — MVNOs were struggling as they could only get access to the network of the state-owned operator National Telecom (NT). Despite mandated MVNO access in the licenses of the private operators AIS, True, and DTAC who had avoided MVNOs for a decade.

The NBTC was expected to review the merger under the existing 2006 regulations, which explicitly gave the regulator power to prohibit mergers that reduce competition.

Economists, consumer groups, academics, AIS, and even the NBTC’s own hired foreign consultants warned that combining the second- and third-largest operators in Thailand was not simply a risky idea but a fundamentally irreversible one.

The expectation was that the NBTC would act as the gatekeeper of public interest.

Enter the NBTC, Thailand’s telecom watchdog, born from the ashes of the 2014 coup-era reforms to foster fair play in broadcasting and communications.

On October 20, 2022 (1,131 days ago), after an 11-hour marathon meeting, the NBTC’s board voted 4-2 – not to “approve” the merger, but to merely “acknowledge” it – a semantic sleight-of-hand sidestepping outright “approval”, thereby allowing the merger to proceed automatically, without the regulator being held responsible for its consequences.

The decision was the result of a deep and public fracture within the NBTC board. The debate inside the NBTC boardroom was fierce. Two commissioners argued that the 2006 Notification clearly empowered the NBTC to block the merger. Two others argued that the 2018 guidelines — weaker, more ambiguous, and more industry-friendly — were the controlling regulation.

The Majority View: Led by NBTC Chairman Dr. Saran Boonbaichaiphruek and Commissioner Torpong Selanon, the majority argued that the merger did not constitute “business ownership in the same service category” under the older 2006 Notification. This conveniently stripped the NBTC of the power to prohibit the merger, limiting their power to simply acknowledging the deal and imposing conditions under the weaker 2018 Announcement.

The Minority View: Commissioners Suphat Suphachalasai and Pirongrong Ramasoota argued that the NBTC possessed the full legal authority under the 2006 Notification to either block the merger or impose far stricter measures, viewing the merger as a clear consolidation of direct competitors.

The board was deadlocked at a 2-2 vote, with Lt. Gen. Thanaphan Raicharoen abstaining, citing unresolved legal questions. The stalemate was broken when Chairman Saran exercised his authority to cast a second, deciding vote in favour of his own position. This “double vote” was heavily criticized by critics, as a procedural violation designed to force the resolution through.

In that moment, the NBTC transformed itself from a regulator into a spectator and set the stage for the most damaging telecom consolidation in the country’s history.

Completion came swiftly: March 1, 2023. True emerged dominant, delisted DTAC, and boasted synergies worth THB 40 billion annually. Telenor pocketed a $760 million impairment but retained a 30.3% stake in the merged company.

What made the “acknowledgement” route even more troubling was that it ran directly against the advice of experts and independent consultancies hired by the NBTC, who warned in blunt language that such a merger would:

• Dramatically reduce competition
• Result in higher prices
• Eliminate consumer choice
• Be nearly impossible to reverse once completed

Those warnings were not subtle. They were not vague. They were the regulatory equivalent of smoke alarms blaring inside the NBTC’s office.

Yet instead of treating these warnings as a call to arms, the NBTC treated them as academic footnotes. In a few hours, the NBTC neutralized its own authority and handed the telecom market a future defined by consolidation, not competition.

It justified the decision by promising that strict merger conditions — especially price reductions, pro-consumer requirements, and MVNO support — would keep the new giant in check.

The NBTC broke every one of those promises.

The NBTC’s merger conditions were supposed to safeguard consumers. They were the political fig leaves used to justify the decision not to block the merger outright. Written into these conditions were mandatory obligations, including:

• A 12% reduction in service rates and unbundled options
• Transparent, independently verified cost data
• Guaranteed network access for MVNOs
• The creation of a separate MVNO-supporting business unit
• A prohibition against margin squeezes
• Multi-year oversight by independent inspectors

On paper, these appeared strong. In reality, 1,000 days later, these conditions have functioned as nothing more than public-relations props — unenforced, unmonitored, and ultimately meaningless.

The most celebrated and politically convenient condition was the mandate that True reduce its average service prices by 12% within 90 days of completing the merger.

NBTC leadership later claimed this condition had been met.

But the claim was based on “random checks” conducted by the NBTC itself, not independent auditors. The regulator refused to publish the underlying cost data, the methodology, or the calculations. Consumers, academics, and civil society groups repeatedly asked for the evidence.

None was ever provided.

Meanwhile, True was phasing out low-priced packages, pushing customers toward more expensive “digital lifestyle bundles,” and eliminating the promotional price war that once kept mobile service affordable. ARPU — a key indicator of how much consumers pay — rose sharply after the merger, not fell. And the increased ARPU came despite the NBTC’s supposed mandate for price cuts.

The regulator’s position was simple: trust us. But trust had already evaporated.

One of the NBTC’s own conditions required the merged company to fund an independent agency to verify and publish cost and price data for five years. This was supposed to be the backbone of the merger oversight system.

Yet in the 1,000 days since the NBTC acknowledged the merger, not a single public report from such an independent verification mechanism has been released. There is no evidence the mechanism is functioning. No evidence the NBTC has enforced it. No evidence that the merged company is complying.

This is not regulatory oversight. It is regulatory theatre.

Perhaps the most catastrophic failure — and the clearest evidence of regulatory capture — was the death of Thailand’s MVNO sector. The NBTC claimed the merger would strengthen MVNOs. Conditions required:

• 20% of network capacity to be made available to MVNOs
• A dedicated MVNO business unit
• Fair, cost-based wholesale prices
• No margin squeeze
• Immediate implementation post-merger

What followed instead was a regulatory massacre. By August 2025, all MVNOs in Thailand were dead. Not dormant. Not struggling –  Dead!

I-Kool. Penguin SIM. Fields Telecom. Infinite SIM. redONE. All gone.

The NBTC could not pretend it was unaware. The board postponed MVNO discussions more than 33 times (and still does). It failed to enforce even the pre-existing 10% wholesale access requirement dating back a decade. It allowed wholesale prices that exceeded retail prices — the textbook definition of a margin squeeze. And when National Telecom (NT) lost access to spectrum in the 2025 auction, the MVNOs relying on that spectrum had no sanctuary.

The NBTC’s inaction was not passive. It was active neglect. It was regulatory euthanasia. It was the quiet, systematic dismantling of the only remaining competitive counterweight after the merger.

In hindsight, the MVNO “support conditions” look less like safeguards and more like window dressing for a predetermined duopoly.

Beyond simple neglect,  key cases and policy decisions serve as a “smoking gun”—demonstrating a pattern of intentional regulatory manipulation designed to shield the duopoly from competition and accountability. These actions move beyond a failure to enforce and into the realm of actively protecting the incumbents.

Obstructing New Entrants – The Case of MVNO Services: The obstruction faced by new competitors is a clear example of this protectionism. The case of MVNO Services Co., Ltd., a licensed Type 1 Mobile Virtual Network Aggregator (MVNA) that provides wholesale network access and enables MVNOs, reveals a series of deliberate administrative roadblocks.

• The Dispute: MVNO Services established its operations in direct support of the NBTC’s mandate to promote MVNOs. After being refused network access by True, MVNO Services filed a formal dispute with the NBTC on March 10, 2025. Network access is mandated both by NBTC notifications since 2013 and the binding True-DTAC merger conditions, which require the merged entity to offer MVNO access to new entrants within 60 days of a valid request.
• Procedural Manipulation: The NBTC Office, the agency’s administrative arm, unilaterally reclassified the case without Board instruction. It reframed the mandatory refusal to negotiate network access (“Dispute”), which required a ruling within 90 days, to a non-mandatory licensing-type issue or “General Complaint”. This single manoeuvre removed the legal deadline, as Complaints could be ignored indefinitely.
• The “Catch-22”: To justify this, the NBTC Office claimed the company’s platform required a Type 3 (Full MVNO) license. This created a bureaucratic trap, as the regulatory framework for a Type 3 MVNO license does not currently exist in Thailand. The regulator was directing a licensed company to apply for an unavailable license, making market entry impossible – or “downgrade” its platform to comply with a Type 1 license, even though the company was already licensed for and pursuing that exact Type 1 setup with True.
• Withholding of Evidence: MVNO Services Co., Ltd. alleged that the NBTC Office intentionally omitted crucial exculpatory evidence from the Board’s review. This evidence included documented proof, such as a Letter of Intent (LoI) and follow-up correspondence, of the MVNA’s multiple attempts (at least five explicit requests) to negotiate technical compliance with True before filing the dispute. By withholding this, the Office made it appear the new entrant was unilaterally attempting to force a non-compliant design, justifying the dismissal.

The administrative malfeasance did not go unnoticed by some of NBTC’s own commissioners. Internal meeting minutes from August 2025 revealed significant dissent:

Air Chief Marshal Dr. Thanapant Raicharoen expressed “concern and a lack of confidence regarding the Office’s consideration process,” stating that the refusal to accept the case as a dispute was “contradictory” to the rules.

Prof. Dr. Suphat Suphachalasai warned that reviewing qualifications before formally triggering the dispute process was procedurally backward, stating metaphorically that it was like “the rear wheel overtaking the front wheel”.

Emeritus Dr. Pirongrong Ramasoota filed a written dissenting opinion, noting that the 90-day statutory deadline for a ruling had already been violated, having “expired on August 17, 2025”.

Commissioner Torpong Selanon inquired how the NBTC could legally justify the fact that the 90-day mandatory deadline had already passed, exposing the procedural mess created by the Office’s dismissal attempt.

This pattern of administrative manipulation has so far resulted in a delay exceeding 259 days (8 months) of regulatory inaction since the formal dispute was filed.

Six pillars aimed to blunt the merger’s anti-competitive edge, with teeth like fines (up to 10% of revenue), escalating penalties, and license revocation for breaches. Yet, as of November 2025, compliance is a mirage.

1. Price Ceiling and Reductions: True must slash average service rates by 12% within 90 days of merger (by May 30, 2023), using weighted averages from pre-merger promotions. Unbundled options – voice, data, SMS à la carte – were mandatory, sans minimums. Cost data? Submitted to an independent verifier for five years.

Reality (Overdue by 853 Days): No verifiable 12% drop. Bundles ballooned to THB 399 for basics, speeds halved. Studies forecasted 7-13% hikes; actual upward pressure hit 12.95%. NBTC’s “random checks” in 2023 claimed compliance, but no public audits since. Overdue reports – Ignored.

2. Average Cost Pricing: Quarterly ledger submissions for Average Cost (AC) and Marginal Cost (MC) calculations, verified by foreign experts (True foots the bill) for 10 years. Rates tied to AC, unbundled and transparent.

Reality (Overdue by 1,000 Days): No evidence of submissions or verifications. Promotions obscure true costs; consumers can’t opt for pay-per-use without bundles. Independent advisors? AWOL. NBTC’s silence screams complicity.

3. Brand Separation (Partially Complied, But Irrelevant): True and DTAC brands preserved for three years. Done – sort of. But with DTAC’s network integrated by October 2025, the distinction is cosmetic.

4. Contract Integrity: Honor pre-merger deals, changes only with consent and user benefit.

Reality: Fine-print tweaks eroded perks; complaints surged, dismissed by NBTC in 2023.

5. Public Confidence Campaigns: PR blitz on quality and fairness.

Reality: Token ads; no metrics on reach or impact. NBTC never audited.

6. MVNO Access: A dedicated unit for MVNO wholesale, 20% network capacity reserved, access within 60 days, discounts ≥30% off retail. Spectrum sharing across bands, QoS guarantees.

Reality (Overdue by 1,000 Days): Zero MVNOs onboarded. Capacity allocation: 0%. Dispute launched by MVNA and MVNOs but procedural manoeuvres from NBTC resulting in regulatory paralysis, catch-22’s and inaction. This pillar alone could fill volumes.

NBTC’s enforcement? Non-existent. No fines levied, no revocation threats, rather the opposite which seems to support the duopoly.

1,000 days after the merger, the consequences are undeniable. The Thai bipolar mobile market (valued at USD 15.04 billion), is now one of the most concentrated telecom industries in the world.

Subscriber Share: Two Titans Alone

As of Q3 2025, True commands approximately 46.9 million subscribers/connections (50.4% market share) . AIS had around 46.3 million (49.6%). Together, they control the entire market. With MVNOs gone and NT unable, the duopoly has complete control on the country.

Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) is a staggering 5.000(Extreme Concentration)

The market today is a two-dinosaur race in with neither dinosaur having any incentive to rock the boat or challenge the other’s comfort.

Revenue: The Duopoly’s Golden Era

Financial data tells the story more clearly than any press release trying to deny it.

ARPU — which tends to fall in competitive markets — rose steadily after the merger. True Corporation reported postpaid ARPU at 426 baht and blended mobile ARPU rising more than 4%. AIS’ ARPU followed the same pattern.

Prices: The 12% cut was a pipe dream. Basic plans rose 14% on average, per consumer filings; data bundles inflated 20% for “premium” 5G tiers. Rural users, already underserved, face 30% premiums for spotty coverage – a duopoly dividend for city elites.

“Rational coexistence” replaced competitive rivalry. Both companies avoided destabilizing price cuts. Both phased out the previously common 199–299 baht entry-level plans. Both steered customers toward higher-value, longer-term contracts.

The math is merciless: ARPU up, margins fat (True’s Q1 2025 net profit: THB 1.6 billion), consumers squeezed.

Consumers were not choosing to pay more. They were forced to pay Duopoly Tax because competition is dead.

Spectrum Power: A Fortress Against Future Competitors

Spectrum is the oxygen of mobile networks. Without enough spectrum, a new entrant cannot compete — even if it has a license, a market, or investor interest.

The True-DTAC merger gave the new True Corporation a combined spectrum portfolio so large, so diverse, and so expensive to replicate that no new competitor could realistically challenge it. AIS, already a spectrum powerhouse, held the rest. The 2025 spectrum auction further tightened the grip, with pricing and design criticized as hostile to new entrants.

Spectrum: June 2025’s auction netted THB 41.3 billion, with True snagging 20 MHz in 1500 MHz and 70 MHz of National Telecom’s 2300 MHz which the MVNOs were using – premium price just 10-18% over reserve. AIS grabbed the rest: 30 MHz 1500, 40 MHz 2100. Total holdings: True ~45% mid-band (post-merger pooling), AIS 55%.

State-owned NT’s concessions expired, ceding scraps; no room for minnows. This “spectrum crisis” auction –  A duopoly feast.

Spectrum — once a public resource distributed to maximize competition — has become an economic moat protecting the duopoly from disruption.

NBTC’s failure on competition oversight, is a scandal enough in itself. But over the past 1,000 days, two additional crises — SIM scams and cross-border signal leakage — revealed a deeper pattern of regulatory deference over protection of the duopoly.

When Thailand faced a surge in telecom-enabled scams, public anger was directed at criminals and the lax SIM distribution ecosystem that supplied them. Police raids uncovered staggering numbers of SIM cards — hundreds of thousands of them.

A single raid in Chiang Mai uncovered 590,000 SIM cards. Another found 300,000 SIM cards. Another found more than 100,000.

Yet instead of holding operators accountable for the lax SIM inventory management and KYC processes that allowed so many SIMs into circulation, the NBTC implemented policies that burdened citizens with re-registration (for the third or fourth time), and only allowed to have 5 SIMs. Smaller retailers are burdened with mandatory biometric checks. Smart card reader requirements. Dual-layer registration.

These rules are expensive to implement, nearly impossible for MVNOs and small retailers to absorb, and largely irrelevant to the operators whose systems allowed the problem to proliferate. In addition, True’s owners sits on 93% of retail in Thailand.

NBTC’s “crackdowns” target symptoms, sparing root: duopoly’s profit-driven distribution. Politicos linked in media to Cambodian scams resign (e.g., Deputy Finance Minister Vorapak, October 2025), yet NBTC fines or other punishments? None!

Signals still leak; 6,444 Thai IPs traced to Poipet scams. Protectionism? Absolutely – duopoly unscathed, while victims foot fraud’s THB 100 billion toll.

Consumers are punished. MVNOs further crippled but the duopoly is untouched.

Another scandal involves Thai network signals extending into scam compounds in Myanmar and Cambodia. These signals are used by call center gangs — often trafficked workers forced into cybercrime — to defraud Thai citizens.

The NBTC ordered operators to implement cell-radius restrictions only after pressure from the Prime Minister’s office. Even then, enforcement was slow and penalties non-existent. No major operator was fined. No spectrum was suspended. No licenses were threatened.

Instead, Thai authorities are dismantled illegal towers, removing cross-border cables, and clean up on a monthly basis, acting like a maintenance crew, not an enforcement agency.

The NBTC announced efforts to launch a “blue flag mobile package” priced at 210 Baht by year-end, available to low-income citizens for a maximum of 3 months.

Critics argue that instead of fostering a truly competitive environment, this limited directive only solidifies the duopoly and their inflated prices for the general market, while absolving the NBTC from its critical duties to enforce structural competition.

This action is widely viewed as focusing on a narrow mandate (time limited special low-priced packages for vulnerable groups) to distract from the failure to enforce the binding 12% average price reduction for all customers and the total collapse of the MVNO market.

NBTC’s consistent failure to enforce binding merger conditions represents a fundamental breakdown of the rule of law in Thailand’s telecom sector, precipitating a severe National Credibility Crisis that directly jeopardizes the country’s international standing.

This systemic regulatory failure effectively creates a Non-Tariff Barrier (NTB) to competition and market access in the services sector.

This is a major impediment to Thailand’s pursuit of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) with jurisdictions like the EU and the US, as modern FTAs demand strong commitments to effective competition enforcement, non-discriminatory regulatory practices, and good governance.

The NBTC’s inaction is a “huge red flag” against Thailand’s ambition to join the OECD, signalling to the global trade and investment community that “Regulations are negotiable” if a private entity can ignore legally binding government orders for nearly three years without penalty.

The NBTC’s regulatory paralysis enabled a market duopoly to thrive, supporting the maxim that “Every day of inaction is a day of profit for the operators.” This inaction led to the “extinction event” of the MVNO market due to ignoring the mandate to allot at network capacity.

This refusal of access, facilitated by the regulator’s inaction, constitutes a NTB, severely restricting market entry and growth for smaller competitors, including potential foreign investors. Compounding this, the NBTC Office allegedly engaged in procedural misconduct by misclassifying mandatory MVNO “Disputes” to circumvent legal enforcement deadlines.

Telenor, is seen as complicit in the non-compliance of the merger conditions. This is not just a commercial matter; it introduces an element of international corporate accountability scandal due to Telenor’s unique profile.

Telenor is a multinational enterprise with the Norwegian government as its majority owner. As Norway is a founding member of the OECD, Telenor is explicitly expected to uphold the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises on Responsible Business Conduct. These guidelines emphasize promoting human rights, sustainable development, and responsible business conduct, including respecting competition rules and acting with integrity.

By being an partner in True, which is allegedly ignoring legally binding government orders and undermining competition (as evidenced by the MVNO “extinction event”), Telenor is perceived as failing to meet the high standards of governance expected of an entity significantly owned by an OECD government.

This directly conflicts with Thailand’s aspiration to join the OECD, where adherence to rule of law is paramount.

If the past 1,000 days have shown anything, it is that Thailand’s telecom regulator cannot be trusted to regulate itself. The NBTC needs structural reform, legal accountability, and transparent oversight far beyond anything currently in place.

Furthermore, any attempt by harmed parties to sue the NBTC for reimbursement and damages will end with the public footing the bill (again) and not the individuals who are responsible for the regulatory failure.

The NBTC must authorize a full forensic audit — independent, public, and legally binding — of the merged True’s pricing, cost structure, and compliance with the 12% reduction condition. If noncompliance is found, penalties must be swift, severe, and proportional to the billions of baht consumers have been overcharged.

The NBTC must immediately commission an independent, forensic audit of True Corporation’s financial records to definitively verify compliance with the 12% average price reduction mandate. This audit must be public and compare the true cost of service bundles against pre-merger price points.

For every day the merged entity is found to be non-compliant, the NBTC must impose severe, escalating financial penalties (up to the maximum allowable percentage of their annual revenue). Non-compliance cannot remain cost-free.

Thailand must establish an independently operated, legally guaranteed wholesale MVNO access regime. Conditions should include:

• A regulated, cost-based wholesale rate
• A multi-year access license to attract new investment back into the sector
• A mandatory, enforceable wholesale offer
• Complete separation of retail and wholesale functions

MVNOs are not a luxury. They are the only path to restoring the competition the NBTC destroyed.

The crisis has exposed deep structural flaws in the NBTC’s governance and mandate.

1. Legal Review of Powers: There must be an urgent political and legal review to re-clarify and strengthen the NBTC’s power to explicitly approve or reject future mergers in the public interest, closing the “acknowledgement” loophole.
2. Public Interest Mandate: The NBTC must be fundamentally restructured to prove that it serves the public interest, not the duopoly’s interest. Its performance must be tied to measurable outcomes: price reductions, new market entrants (MVNOs), and effective crime prevention (KYC/SIM card controls).

The NBTC must undergo political and legal restructuring. The regulator cannot be allowed to escape accountability through semantics ever again.

Oversight committees must have real subpoena power. Board decisions must have transparent voting and appeal mechanisms. And failure to enforce conditions must trigger automatic investigations.

Regulators exist to constrain power, not surrender to it.

More than 1,000 days after the TRUE DTAC merger, the fears voiced by experts, consumer groups, and minority commissioners have all come true.

Prices are higher. Competition is dead. MVNOs are extinct. Fraud is rampant. Spectrum is concentrated. And the regulator entrusted with safeguarding the public interest has spent nearly three years avoiding responsibility, defending operators, and repeating unverified assurances.

And one big questions still remains – where is the Trade Competition Commission of Thailand in all of this?

The problem is the NBTC and Thailand will not escape the duopoly era through wishful thinking. It will escape only through enforcement, transparency, reform, and the political courage to confront regulatory failure head-on.

Until then, every Thai mobile subscriber will continue to pay the price — literally — for the NBTC’s broken promise.