Sudharma Yoonaidharma, a member of the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), said yesterday that the organisation's board had charged two of its telecom experts Pitjapol Jantanasaro and Boonserm Ung-pakorn with solving the problem.

Wichian Mektrakarn, executive vice president of operations at Advanced Info Service Plc (AIS), said that AIS and Total Access Communication (DTAC) had reached an agreement a month ago to further expand the capacity of their direct network connections. Both companies starting expanding capacity after the Songkran festival.

The two companies will both install so-called E1 equipment in their direct links and add 750 units to the current 1,100, according to DTAC. One E1 has 30 circuits, each of which can cater to one phone number.

Both cellular operators account for 70 per cent of the mobile-phone call traffic. They connect with each other via TOT Plc's gateway and their direct links.

Each has also expanded the capacity of their direct network links with True Move, the third-largest cell-phone player.

"I can't say exactly when the expansion will be finished. We want to make it as fast as we can but it will take time because we have to import the relevant equipment," Wichian said.

He said that another effective way to solve the problem was for all cellular operators to reduce the launch of heavy call promotions which end up overloading networks.

Many mobile-phone users have experienced difficulty in connecting to other customers within their networks, different networks and even land lines during the past weeks. TOT Plc has blamed the failures to traffic jams in networks prompted by cheap call promotion campaigns by all cellular operators.

Some promotions charge users only during the first few minutes, therefore, many subscribers keep talking for hours to enjoy the free air time during subsequent minutes.

AIS has around 16.6 million subscribers, DTAC has around 10 million, and True Move 4.9 million.

TOT yesterday also issued a statement defending itself against reports that the problem for mobile phone users was due to its failure to expand its gateway, through which cellular networks connect to each other, to cater to the surge in call traffic.

"We saw the trend of surging mobile phone call traffic last year and asked all cellular operators to expand their connection capacity at our gateway last October. So far we have yet to receive a response from the major companies," said Chamras Tantrisukorn, TOT senior executive vice president.

He added that TOT expanded the gateway capacity in the fourth quarter for all cellular operators.

Sources at some cellular operators said that it was much quicker for mobile phone service providers to expand the capacity at their direct network links rather than at the TOT gateway.

Telecom Reporters

The Nation