Thai telecom regulator NBTC is considering auctioning only two lots of LTE bandwidth in the upcoming August auction, instead of the three initially planned.
The regulator may put only two 10 MHz carriers of 1800-MHz spectrum on the block, the Bangkok Post said.
Such a plan would leave 5 MHz of spectrum to be incorporated with another 50 MHz of 1800-MHz spectrum due to be auctioned in September 2015.
The original plan had called for the 25 MHz of spectrum to be bundled with 17.5 MHz of 900-MHz spectrum in a package bidding model. But the NBTC has already decided to auction the 900-MHz separately in November.
NBTC committee member Prawit Leesathapornwongsa told the paper that the proposal is being considered in an attempt to boost competitive bidding, and that a final draft of the auction process will be decided upon at this month's committee meeting.
Auctioning only two licenses could allow NBTC to avoid a repeat of the 2.1-GHz 3G auction in October 2012. The decision to auction three licenses and a cap 15 MHz cap on the spectrum each operator could bid for was blamed for the fact that the auction ended with just a 2.8% premium.
But on the other hand, as Telenor Asia chief Sigve Brekke noted in the report, 10-MHz is not enough to provide 4G services and the auction is unlikely to attract any new entrants due to market saturation.