AIS chief executive Somprasong Boonyachai recommended yesterday the Information and Commu-nications Technology Ministry and the NTC convert all concessions into licences. This would see fair competition.

AIS called for fairness after competitors Total Access Communica-tion (DTAC) and True Move last week jointly asked the ministry and the commission to look into alleged unfair business practices at AIS.

Separately, Minister Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom said yesterday he planned to amend concession laws to promote fair competition. He said legislative amendments should be completed within the term of this government.

Several telecom concessionaires want to exit their contracts and seek licences they consider cheaper and fairer. They do not want to pay concession fees to government agencies they compete with.

During the first nine months of this year AIS paid Bt14 billion in fees to concession owner TOT.

Somprasong asked if DTAC had shared with concession owner CAT Telecom the proceeds of the sale of 12.5 MHz of bandwidth from its 1800 MHz spectrum to Wireless Communication Service (WCS) and a similar amount to Samart's Digital Phone.

WCS is today renamed True Move and DPC is now an AIS subsidiary.

Somprasong wanted a public inquiry because the transaction amounted to the sale of a national asset. He demanded the NTC seize the two bandwidths.

They have an estimated value of around Bt2 billion.

DTAC chief executive Sigve Brekke insisted the company did not sell the spectrum to WCS and Samart. It returned them to CAT which later awarded them to the two companies.

Even without the bandwidths DTAC has the most spectrum in the 50-MHz bandwidth, which could be divided among three new operators, Somprasong said.

CAT awarded DTAC the 75-MHz bandwidth of the 1800-MHz spectrum when it commenced services in 1989.

Somprasong said DPC and DTAC had disputes pending in arbitration.

DTAC made a deal with DPC that its customers could roam on the DTAC network between 1998 and 2005. But DPC stopped paying after being taken over by AIS in 2001.

Recently Chianchuang Kalayanamitr, an advisor to the former House telecoms committee asked the Assets Examination Committee to probe a 2001 TOT permission for AIS to share revenue from prepaid calls at a flat rate of 20 per cent - a change from incremental rises from 20 per cent to 25 per cent and then 30 per cent.

Chianchuang claimed this cost TOT Bt85 billion if calculated from 2001 to the end of the AIS concession in 2015.

The reduction was one issue DTAC and True Move had asked the ministry and the NTC to investigate.

TOT granted the change after it had allowed DTAC in 2001 to change the way it paid access charges for its prepaid callers to 18 per cent of revenue as opposed to a Bt200 monthly flat fee.

Access charges are paid by all CAT cellular concessionaires - like DTAC and True Move - to TOT as a cost to connect to different networks using TOT facilities.

AIS yesterday said from the start of 2001 to the present DTAC had saved Bt47.76 billion from the change. That figure would be Bt200 billion if calculated throughout the life of the DTAC concession expiring in 2018.

DTAC and True Move said AIS did not have to pay the access charge because it has a TOT concession. They claimed this was an unfair advantage.

Somprasong suggested the access charge should be replaced with a NTC inter-connection charge.

The NTC interconnection charge requires all operators to share voice and data revenue between networks involved in a call at a fair rate.

All operators are in talks to finalise interconnection rates they will charge one another.

Meanwhile, True Move and DTAC jointly proposed to the minister yesterday that both pay a "special rate" of interconnection charge to TOT for a certain period once they stopped paying TOT access charges.

"This is one solution that would prevent TOT from suffering an immediate, huge loss from the plan to stop paying access charges," said True Move chief executive Supachai Chearavanont.

Usanee Mongkolporn

The Nation