Thai Operators Launch Low-Income Tariff

Thailand's four main mobile network operators, AIS, DTAC, True Move and Hutch has jointly announced plans to offer a special tariff to low-income people which will be managed by the government's Commerce Ministry.

Thana Thienachariya, chief commercial officer of DTAC, told the Bangkok Post that the cards would feature a single tariff plan targeting low-income customers. The tariff will be known as "Blue Flag", which corresponds to other government subsidy schemes which are also known by blue flag names.

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.

According to figures from the Mobile World database, the country's largest operator, AIS ended last September with some 23.2 million customers, followed by DTAC with 14.9 million, True Move (11.2 million) and Hutch with just 884,000.

On the web: Bangkok Post - Mobile World

Posted to the site on 2nd March 2008