Cellular revenue row continues despite court
The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) instructed TOT yesterday to integrate 1.5 million new mobile-phone numbers from each of Total Access Communication (DTAC) and True Move into its system immediately and permanently.
NTC secretary-general Suranan Wongvithayakamjorn said TOT would face fines or revocation of its licence if it refused to do so. However, DTAC chief executive Sigve Brekke yesterday said TOT had already completed integrating his company's 1.5 million new mobile-phone numbers into its network. True Move CEO Supachai Chearavanont said he had not yet checked whether the state agency had completed the same process for his company's new numbers. Last December, TOT refused to integrate the new numbers of the two cellular operators into its network, saying they were refusing to pay its access charge. TOT's refusal to integrate the numbers meant they were unable to pick up calls from TOT subscribers. The stand-off led DTAC and True Move to seek an injunction against TOT's action from the Central Administrative Court. The court ruled in favour of DTAC and True Move, and TOT later began integrating their new numbers. TOT's access charge is a cost against CAT Telecom's three private cellular concessionaires - DTAC, True Move and Digital Phone - for connecting to different networks via TOT's facilities. But DTAC and True Move want to pay only the interconnection charge instead of both the interconnection and the access charges. The interconnection charge, which was introduced by the NTC last April, requires all telecom operators to share voice and data revenues between the two networks involved in calls. Yesterday, Advanced Info Service (AIS), DTAC and True Move began officially billing one another for the interconnection charge. TOT, which has opposed their adoption of the interconnection charge, insists that DTAC and True Move should continue paying the access charge, which has earned the state agency Bt14 billion annually in recent years. Brekke said that on Wednesday, DTAC paid TOT's access charge for the period of last November 18-30 but at the interconnection-charge rate of Bt1.25 a minute. "We paid a cheque worth Bt110 million," he said. TOT reportedly declined to accept the payment. Supachai of True Move yesterday insisted his company would not pay the access charge. Executives of TOT, CAT Telecom, DTAC, True Move and Digital Phone got together yesterday in an attempt to find a solution to the row. The meeting ended without a settlement. Telecom Reporters The Nation
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