Sastra To-orn, a Rangsit University law lecturer, said the higher court notified his group, which had appealed the lower court verdict, of the decision against it in the morning.

Last November, Sastra and others including Rosana Tositrakul of the Federation of Consumer Organisations jointly petitioned the Central Administrative Court to order the interconnection charge of the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) to be cancelled, claiming it was not in the national interest.

The interconnection regulation was published in the Royal Gazette last May.

In December, the lower court refused to accept the case on grounds that the group was not the directly affected party. The upper court cited the same reason.

Sastra said he has already told TOT, which seems to be the aggrieved party, to file a similar petition in the lower court.

A TOT source said the state agency had appointed Sastra to be its adviser in filing the case at the lower court.

The interconnection law requires all telecoms to share revenues for voice and data calls across their networks. Major cellular operators forged interconnection-rate deals with each other last year.

TOT opposes the interconnection charge since some private cellular operators, which hold CAT Telecom's concessions, want to exit the access-charge regime and pay only the interconnection charge.

The access charge is what private cellular operators under CAT have paid to TOT for connecting their calls to other networks via TOT's facilities.

Telecom Reporters

The Nation