The national telecom regulator recently opened up the market to phone-to-phone Internet calling services.

Sudharma Yoonaidharma, a member of the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), said Internet service-provider licensees could now start offering a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) calling service from phone to phone.

While the NTC's Internet-service licensees can automatically start offering the new service right now, those with no Internet licence must apply for one first before they can provide it or any other kind of VoIP services.

Earlier, the NTC permitted its Internet-service licensees to offer only VoIP calls from personal computer to personal computer and from personal computer to mobile or fixed telephone.

The NTC has allocated the prefix of 06 mainly for providing the VoIP service from phone to phone, including other new telecom-technology services, under its interim numbering plan. The phone-to-phone VoIP service will use the 06 prefix, followed by an eight-digit number.

The regulator is expected to introduce the official numbering plan next month.

The operators of the phone-to-phone VoIP service will also be subject to the NTC interconnection charge regime, which requires all telecom operators to share voice and data revenues between the networks involved in the calls on a fair basis.

VoIP technology allows free or cheap calls to anywhere in the world via an IP channel rather than a telephone network.

Among the existing providers of VoIP services from personal computer to personal computer and personal computer to phone include CAT Telecom, True Internet and TT&T.

Meanwhile, the NTC has yet to grant a licence to ACeS Regional Service (ARS) to operate a satellite-based cellular service.

Sudharma said the company had operated a satellite-based cellular service under a CAT concession and now wanted to comply with NTC regulations.

Sudharma said the NTC needed to examine first whether it could award the licence to ARS, which used an Indonesian satellite to offer the service.

The NTC has also yet to grant a licence to Shin Satellite to offer an international Internet gateway (IIG) service, pending further study of the application details.

IIGs serve as a channel for local Internet service providers to connect or exchange traffic with global Internet networks.

Usanee Mongkolporn

The Nation