The board of TOT Plc decided yesterday it would not revoke its access charge, despite the national telecom regulator being set to introduce interconnection charge regulations.

TOT acting president Chamras Tantreesukhon said the access fee would still be charged to private concessionaires of CAT Telecom Plc.

At the same time it finished working out interconnection fees it will propose to the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) before July 3.

"TOT will apply the interconnection charge to the new NTC's licensees only, not to the existing private concessions," Chamras said.

"And if we're financially hurt by the interconnection charge regulations, we reserve the right to demand compensation from the relevant parties," he said.

All of CAT's private cellular concessionaires have paid the access charge to TOT for the cost of connecting to different networks via TOT's facilities.

Some concessionaires, such as Total Access Communication (DTAC) and True Move, want TOT to cancel the access charge and say they will pay only the interconnection charge under the NTC's regime.

TOT and CAT Telecom Plc have yet to submit rate proposals to the NTC, which is implementing interconnection regulations that will require all telecom operators to share voice and data revenues when calls are made between networks owned by two different companies.

The interconnection charge comprises termination, transit and origination fees.

TOT will propose to the NTC an origination rate of Bt3 per minute, a transit rate of Bt0.50 per minute, and a termination rate of Bt1.25 per minute for cellular calls to its network.

For local calls from fixed-line networks to fixed-line networks in the same areas, it will propose the same three rates but the charge will be based on a per-call charge basis, not per minute. The termination fee is paid by the owner of the network that calls originate from to the owner of the destination network.

The owner of the network from which a call originates pays a transit rate to the owner of the transit network, which relays calls from one network to another.

The origination rate is paid to the owner of the network from which a call originates by the company that owns the network that receives a call.

The rate applies to CAT, which has to share overseas call revenue with telecom operators that transfer their subscribers' calls to CAT's overseas call network.

For the termination rate, Advanced Info Service Plc (AIS) has proposed Bt1.07 per minute to the NTC. Total Access Communication (DTAC) and True Move have proposed Bt1, while True Corp Plc has suggested Bt1.25.

For the call origination rate, AIS, DTAC and True Move have all proposed Bt3 per minute. AIS proposed a transit rate of Bt1 per minute, DTAC Bt0.50, and True Move Bt0.20.