TOT hears the message
The board of TOT Plc yesterday decided to permanently cancel the state agency's practice of charging callers for its 1133 enquiry service to comply with an order from the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC).
TOT chairman Sathit Limpongpan said the organisation would ask for a new phone number from the NTC to serve as a new information service provider on a commercial basis. TOT has operated the 1133 service, formerly known as 13 service, free of charge for many years.It started charging callers in February at the rate of Bt3 per minute. The NTC ordered TOT to stop the collection early in March. It issued a second order later last month. Last week TOT decided to suspend the practice of collecting fees. It obtained the board's approval yesterday to permanently scrap the fee. However, Sathit did not say if the TOT would return the fees that had been collected in February and March. According to the agency, the cost of operating the 1133 service was about Bt233 million a year. The total number of calls it received was estimated to be 10 million a month. On a separate matter, Sathit said TOT would not experience the same privatisation problem as the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand. Sathit said TOT already examined all the relevant documents and processes. It did not think there would be any difficulty with its going public. The Supreme Administrative Court last month ruled that the government plan to list Egat in the stock market was illegal due to flawed preparations and issues regarding conflicts of interest on the part of the panel in charge of the listing. Usanee Mongkolporn, The Nation
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