Overhaul of telecom regulatory fees
The government will overhaul the regulatory fees paid by telecom operators to create a level playing field.
Finance Minister MR Pridiyathorn Devakula said yesterday that the adjustment would be completed before December.The government has assigned Information and Communications Technology Minister Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom and PM Office's Minister Prasith Kowilaikul to look into the matter of access and interconnection charges, the telecom excise tax and regulatory fees. Pridiyathorn insisted that the government would not terminate the existing concession contract system but would focus on ensuring fair competition for all players. The access charge is an agreement between TOT and all private cellular concessionaires of CAT Telecom. It is the charge they have paid to TOT for connecting different networks via TOT's network. Total Access Communication (DTAC), which holds a CAT cellular concession, wants TOT to convert the access charge agreement into the interconnection charge imposed by the national telecom regulator, the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC). DTAC wants to comply with the NTC's regulations and to pay only the interconnection charge, instead of both access and interconnection charges. The interconnection charge mandates a network of the caller to proportionately share voice and data revenue with the network of the receiver. Concerned about losing revenue, TOT has yet to grant DTAC's request relating to the access charge. It has earned access charges of around Bt14 billion per year from all CAT's cellular concessionaires. Ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra's government imposed a telecom excise tax in 2003. It was agreed that the incumbent operators would not - as they did before - have to pay the full amount of concession fees to state agencies, which would soon become privatised and become their competitors, rather than their regulators. The telecom excise tax is applied to all telecom operators, whether they are state concessionaires or NTC licensees. The fixed-line operators have paid 2 per cent out of their concession fee as the telecom excise tax to the Excise Department and the remainder to their concession owners, whether TOT or CAT. The cellular operators have paid 11 per cent out of their concession fee to the Excise Department and the remainder to either TOT or CAT. TOT, which has complained about the telecom excise tax burden, asked the ICT Ministry to terminate the tax. The Finance Ministry owns a 100-per-cent stake in TOT and CAT. Anoma Srisukkasem, The Nation
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