Council of State unable to help NTC
In its reply to the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) last month, the Council of State said it could not comment on whether the licensing body has the power to regulate private telecom concessionaires as the question is related to a pending appeal.
The case in question is TOT Plc's appeal, lodged with the Supreme Administrative Court, concerning the state agency's dispute with its private concessionaire, TT&T Plc. TT&T put the case before the Central Administrative Court questioning TOT's regulatory power, given that the NTC had already been established and TOT had been corporatised. The lower court ruled in May to suspend TOT's regulatory power over TT&T, given that the NTC is already in charge of the industry. The NTC consulted the Council of State on February 16 this year concerning its authority under Article 80 of the telecom law to regulate telecom operators whose businesses were established before the law took effect in 2001 and were under concessions from TOT and CAT. The consultation aimed to seek a clear legal guideline for the regulation of the market. Article 80 states private telecom concessionaires shall be deemed as having the same right and duties to the NTC licensees under the telecom law. The NTC's key point of consultation is whether it can grant licences to the private concessionaires of TOT and CAT. In addition, it asked whether the private concessionaires have to continue complying with the concession contracts after winning NTC licences, as well as querying whether the NTC can amend their concessions in cases in which the conditions in their concession contravene the licences. In May, the NTC sent more information to the Council of State for consideration relating to its request for consultation. The information included complaints from some private concessionaires to the NTC that TOT and CAT were still claiming their regulatory powers to ask for access to some of their business information that would affect their competitive position. The NTC also sent the ruling of the lower court in the dispute case between TT&T and TOT for the council to consider. The private telecom concessionaires want to be free from state regulatory power in order to compete with the state agencies on an equal footing. Despite consulting with the Council of State, the NTC is set to apply its regulations to the private concessionaires of TOT and CAT, including the plan to directly charge them for phone-number fees.
Usanee Mongkolporn The Nation
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