The board of the national telecommunications regulator yesterday approved a draft of the standard telecom service contract, of which one measure bans operators from setting a period for the validity of refill cards for prepaid phone services.

The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) intends for the draft contract to protect customers of the telecom companies, as required by the law.

An NTC commissioner, Sudharma Yoonaidharma, said consumers were entitled to use their phones without an expiration period which encourages them to quickly use up the call value.

He added that the NTC would hold public hearings on the draft within a month and put the contract regulations into effect the following month.

"Telecom operators can inform us during the hearing about the possible impact of such measures," he said.

There are around 30 million mobile-phone subscribers, of which most are prepaid users. Currently the validity periods for prepaid refill cards vary from five days to 100 days.

After the end of the period, if subscribers do not refill the value, they cannot make outgoing calls, but can receive calls for a certain period before the service is terminated.

Thana Tienachariya, chief commercial officer of Total Access Communication (DTAC), the second largest cellular operator, said that the elimination of the validity period would encourage some subscribers to be active call receivers, instead of active callers. That will hurt the telecom firms' profits.

"It will be much more difficult to determine if subscribers are still active and that means telecom operators cannot recycle inactive numbers. They have to ask for new phone numbers from the NTC more often. He added that the measure would add to the telecom operators' cost of maintaining phone numbers.

He said DTAC had already shouldered higher operating costs. The company has to pay a concession fee to its concession owner CAT Telecom Plc, plus an access charge to TOT Plc for connecting different networks via TOT's network.

Advanced Info Service (AIS) has been exempt from the access charge because it is a TOT concessionaire. AIS executives declined to comment on the measure, saying that they had yet to receive details.

The NTC draft also governs fee collections, the supply of telecom services, the termination of contracts and consumer complaints.

Consumers will be protected by their contracts from the day they buy telecom services and can refer to the contract if they file lawsuits against their telecom providers.

Separately, Sudharma said the NTC would amend draft regulations preventing foreign dominance in local telecom operations.

The NTC will add a caveat that if any local telecom operator is found to be seriously dominated by foreign shareholders, the NTC will consult with the Office of the National Security Council to determine the ownership poses a national security threat.

Usanee Mongkolporn

The Nation