Thailand's Long Road to Telecom Reform

This paper reviews the reorganization of Thailand's telecommunications markets from the late 1980s up to the present with emphasis on the changes that have occurred during the current Thaksin administration. We take an interest group approach to analysing Thai telecom politics. Our view is that the main interested parties will have the greatest influence on policy and that policy outcomes will therefore reflect the goals of those groups. Currently, the telecom policy landscape in Thailand is characterized by the leading position held by the country's private sector telecom firms. Support for these companies and their goals has become the driving force behind telecom policy and has replaced the more bureaucratic-led policy-making of the last decade. While the newly dominant coalition of private sector telecom operators can be seen as supporting the completion of the privatization of Thailand's public sector telecommunications organizations, they are not likely to support the creation of the fully competitive telecom markets envisioned during past administrations. We therefore argue that oligopoly-structured markets similar to those which already exist for fixed-line and mobile telephony services will be the likely endpoint of Thailand's current telecom liberalization phase.