The national regulator and private telecom operators have reached an agreement to hold a forum to share knowledge and experience concerning disputes between operators and their customers.

Sudharma Yoonaidharma, a member of the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), said yesterday the forum would be a place where the NTC could learn and develop its dispute settlement mechanism for the future. The mechanism aims to solve disagreements between private concessionaires and state concession owners, and also between telecom companies and consumers.

The NTC wants to begin the forum on disputes between the telecom operators and consumers first as it is authorised to directly intervene in such cases, Sudharma said during a meeting with telecom operators to jointly develop a dispute settlement process.

TOT Plc and CAT Telecom Plc did not participate in the meeting.

Sudharma said the NTC would work out details of the forum soon.

During the meeting Athueck Asvanund, vice chairman of True Corp Plc, said the regulator should devise a measure to ensure fairness in the dispute settlement process between private concessionaires and state concession owners.

He said if a state agency lost a case against a private concessionaire in the arbitration court, it could appeal to the Central Administrative Court to override the ruling. However, if a private concessionaire lost a case to a concession owner, it could not appeal under the joint business agreements between concessionaires and state concession owners.

TOT, which owns True's fixed-line concession, recently appealed to the Central Administrative Court to override an arbitration court ruling, which ordered the state agency to pay the network access-sharing revenue to True.

Usanee Mongkolporn

The Nation