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Published on April 4, 2008

Tension seems to be easing in the latest row between Thailand's mobile-phone operators.

Advanced Info Service (AIS) will allow Hutchison-CAT to create a direct link to its network, in order to ease call traffic jams.

CAT Telecom and AIS agreed on the move in a recent unofficial management meeting, said a CAT source. The meeting followed Civil Court action in which Hutch sought an injunction preventing the alleged blocking of calls from Hutch customers to the AIS network. AIS denies blocking the calls.

Hutch and CAT will create 100 and 300 circuits, respectively, to connect with AIS, while AIS will create 147 circuits to connect with CAT's Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) 2000 1-x network, which covers 51 provinces.

There is presently no direct link between the networks of AIS and Hutch. Calls must be connected via TOT.

Hutch markets a CDMA cellular service covering 25 provinces

under a CAT contract.

Hutch sent a letter to CAT seeking talks over the alleged blocking of its calls.

It was dated March 24 but arrived on March 28, the day that the Civil Court upheld Hutch's application for a temporary injunction preventing AIS from the alleged blocking of calls from Hutch's customers to the AIS network.

Hutch claimed that since early last month, its customers had encountered difficulty making outgoing calls to AIS customers.

AIS responded by saying it would charge Hutch before the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) with dumping call prices, a move it said was affecting other networks.

AIS said Hutch's call traffic to its network reached 7 million minutes a day last month, up from 6.8 million minutes a day in February. This had caused congestion in some routes within TOT.

The NTC's Consumer Protection Institute will meet with Hutch today and AIS next Tuesday to investigate the case, following complaints from Hutch subscribers about alleged difficulties in connecting to AIS's network.

Industry analysts say the problem stems from the lack of an interconnection-charge agreement between AIS and Hutch. AIS, Total Access Communication and True Move all have bilateral interconnection agreements, following deals last year in which they settled on an interconnection-fee rate of about Bt1 per minute.

The interconnection regulations require a calling network to pay an interconnection fee to a receiving network.

Hutch, which has only 1 million subscribers, has yet to reach an interconnection agreement with any telecom operator. It has proposed payment of 21 satang a minute.

AIS and CAT will soon begin negotiations on interconnection rates.

AIS says it hesitated to discuss possible interconnection rates with Hutch earlier because of TOT's opposition to the NTC's interconnection regulations.

However, AIS has already booked revenue from interconnection fees to its revenue despite TOT's opposition.

An NTC source said an advisory team had proposed an interim interconnection rate of about 45 satang a minute be imposed on all telecom operators unable to reach bilateral agreements.

The NTC has yet to consider that proposal.

Telecom Reporters

The Nation