Rent-seeking ruins digital future of Thailand (and others)


Posted on July 29, 2010  /  0 Comments

Don Sambandaraksa passionately speaks and writes about the state of telecoms in his country, Thailand. Recently he unveiled how the state-owned telecoms entities have been extorting from the industry and also from the USF.

Such a Thailand is a stranger to the world. Its tourism, airlines and hospitality have set a unique benchmark across the service industries. Thai telecoms sector, however, seems to be the black ship.

The Oxford-educated photogenic prime minister of Thailand appears to be obsessed with repeating the European disastrous auction of 3G spectrum during early 2000s. India has mindlessly replicated that Western stupidity very recently. Thailand should not follow those steps toward digital futility.

Learning from Malaysian or Sri Lankan 3G examples seems blasphemous for the Thai leadership. We, in Bangladesh, are quite nervous about the over-mystification of 3G in India and elsewhere. Because the grid of greed has become highly pervasive in today’s world, as John Kay said.

Don Sambandaraksa has concluded urging his fellow Thais, “(It’s) Time to wake up and start running.” The people of Thailand should decide if they will be “running” away from the evil or fight it back. Make no mistake – the color of T-shits should be uniform in the latter case.

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