One serious problem is the lack of collaboration between the government and the telecom regulator to set a clear direction for the industry, he said.

While the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) is the regulator, it does not have full supervisory authority over the private telecom concessions under TOT and CAT Telecom.

The NTC also cannot dictate operating policies to TOT and CAT, even though both are NTC licensees, as they are under the Information and Communications Technology Ministry. TOT often challenges the NTC's policies, Supachai said.

The NTC and ICT Ministry should sit down and lay out a well-defined framework for the whole industry, deciding among other things if the private telecom operators on concession have to pay only the NTC's interconnection charge or also TOT's access charge.

TOT insists that the three private cellular operators on CAT concessions - Total Access Communication (DTAC), True Move and Digital Phone - have to pay TOT for connecting their networks via TOT's facilities.

But DTAC and True Move want to pay only the interconnection fee, instead of both access and interconnection charges. True Move is the cellular flagship of True Group. The interconnection scheme provides for all telecom operators to share voice and data revenues between the networks involved in calls.

Major cellular operators started paying the interconnection charge this month, but TOT insists that telecoms under CAT have to keep paying the access charge.

"At this stage, we're confused which direction we can move in, forward or backward. The NTC does not make it clear about the interconnection charge and access charge, while the ICT Ministry reserves its point of view too," he said.

Sometimes he thinks True Group is willing to pay the access charge as long as it is not stuck with interconnection charges and number fees. This is because he is not sure if any party will require True to pay any additional regulatory charges.

Private telecom operators are like a horse, he says, that has to race on a track, not a pebble-strewn road. "If you want them to be on a par with the foreign firms in Thailand, you've got to set a clear direction," he said.

But Supachai disagrees with TOT's remark that the NTC should be disbanded. That would be a major setback for the industry, he said.

Usanee Mongkolporn

The Nation