True may eventually exit TOT access fee
Cellular operator True Move is thinking of stopping its access-charge payments to TOT Plc once the national telecom regulator imposes its interconnection-charge regulations.
True Move chief executive Supachai Chearavanont said his company was considering exiting from the access charge and instead adopting the upcoming interconnection regime of the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC). But it has to wait to see whether the NTC regulations will be applied to private telecom concessionaires like True Move and not solely to NTC licensees. He regards the access-charge payment as an "agreement" between TOT and True Move but not part of the concession contract between them. Therefore, it would go against the interconnection-charge regulations if True Move continued paying the access charge. True Move is estimated to have paid TOT around Bt4 billion in access charges last year. NTC chairman Choochart Promphrasid has already signed off on the final regulations, which should soon be published in the Royal Gazette. The regulations, which will be applied to all telecom operators, obligate them to share voice and data revenues between their networks. All of CAT Telecom Plc's private cellular concessionaires - True Move, Total Access Communication (DTAC) and Digital Phone Co - have paid the access charge to TOT as a cost of connecting different networks via TOT facilities. Leading cellular operator Advanced Info Service Plc (AIS) has been exempted from the charge, because it is a TOT concessionaire. TOT is expected to be affected financially if True Move stops paying the charge to it. AIS executives have said their company would ask TOT to reduce its concession fee if CAT's cellular concessionaires stopped paying the TOT access charge. Currently, AIS shares 30 per cent of its revenues with TOT under the concession contract. AIS chief executive Somprasong Boonyachai recently said his company was ready to comply with the interconnection-charge regulations. TOT executive vice president Prinya Visessiri said the state agency had considered consulting the Central Administrative Court about whether the new regulations would affect the access charge. He cited Article 335 of Constitution, which requires two parties to honour contracts entered into before the Constitution took effect, until they expire. The NTC ordered TOT and CAT to determine interconnection rates jointly, but neither has yet to reach a conclusion.
Usanee Mongkolporn The Nation
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