The telecom regulator wants to force TOT to speed up the connection of its subscribers with the 1.5 million new mobile-phone users of True Move.

Suranan Wongvithayakamjorn, secretary-general of the National Telecommunications Commission, said last week that the NTC would soon hold a meeting to discuss the problem and probe why its licensee has yet to finish the procedure.

Athueck Asvanand, vice president of True Corp, the parent of True Move, said that as far as he knew, the state agency had yet to add the company's 1.5 million phone numbers - recently allocated to it by the NTC - to its switching system.

Last month TOT declined to connect up True Move and Total Access Communication (DTAC), citing their refusal to keep paying the access charge.

Both cellular operators started selling their new phone numbers last month.

TOT's inaction prompted both cellular operators to seek an injunction from the Central Administrative Court, which on January 19 ordered TOT to provide the connections so consumers would not be inconvenienced.

TOT obeyed the court order for DTAC but not True Move.

An industry source said True Move had informed the court again about TOT's negligence and the court last Friday called in TOT to give an explanation. It also summoned TOT for further questioning this Thursday.

True Move has delayed applying for more phone numbers until TOT connects its recent batch of numbers, while Advanced Info Service (AIS) and DTAC recently applied for three million numbers each.

The access charge is what cellular operators - including DTAC, True Move and Digital Phone, which hold concessions from CAT Telecom - have paid TOT for using its facilities to link up with other networks.

DTAC and True Move want to pay only the interconnection charge, instead of both access and interconnection charges. TOT earns some Bt14 billion a year in access charges.

The NTC's interconnection charge regime requires all telecoms to share voice and data revenues between their networks.

AIS, DTAC and True Move signed interconnection deals with each other last month. AIS has 19.5 million subscribers, DTAC more than 12 million and True Move about 7 million.

Usanee Mongkolporn

The Nation