CAT Telecom has told its private cellular concessionaires True Move and Total Access Communi-cation (DTAC) it may take legal action against them if they do not pay access charges to TOT.

The move follows a request from TOT that CAT pay the access charges of True Move and DTAC.

According to the TOT-CAT access-charge contract, CAT has to pay compensation to TOT if its cellular concessionaires refuse to pay the charges.

CAT president Phisal Jorpokaudom said yesterday that if CAT did not pay the access charges to TOT within 60 days, TOT would consider that CAT had breached the contract.

"Therefore, we recently asked DTAC and True Move to pay the access charge to TOT. We assigned our legal department to study what we could do if the two cellular operators still refuse

to pay the access charge," he added.

The access charge is the cost CAT's cellular concessionaires, including Digital Phone, DTAC, and True Move, pay to TOT for connecting different networks via TOT's facilities.

DTAC and True Move have made it clear that they want to pay only the interconnection charge, instead of both the interconnection and access charges.

Introduced by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) last year, the interconnection charge requires all telecom operators, which signed bilateral interconnection deals, to share voice and data revenue between the networks involved in the calls.

Three major cellular operators - Advanced Info Service, DTAC and True Move - forged interconnection deals late last year.

TOT has collected total access charges of Bt14 billion per year.

DTAC and TOT entered a process of access-charge dispute settlement before the arbitration panel of the NTC on Wednesday.

TOT has insisted that DTAC is not an NTC licensee but a concessionaire and therefore not subject to the NTC's interconnection regime.

The refusal of DTAC and True Move to pay the access charges to TOT prompted the state agency to refuse to connect its fixed-line subscribers with an additional 1.5 million mobile-phone numbers for both DTAC and True Move.

Last month the Central Administrative Court ordered TOT to enable such connections so that consumers would not be affected.

Telecom Reporters

The Nation