Quarterly payments among mobile firms
The big money interplay between Thailand's three largest mobile-phone operators was revealed yesterday, with details of interconnection-charge fees changing hands after the first quarter's business.
True Move gained net interconnection-charge revenues of Bt44 million from Total Access Communication (DTAC) in the first quarter, while DTAC saved about Bt500 million in the same period by refusing to pay TOT's access charges and choosing instead to pay interconnection charges. However, one telecom analyst with a foreign brokerage house said True Move's situation would be reversed later when it had to pay interconnection charges to the largest cellular operator, Advanced Info Service (AIS). AIS has yet to receive interconnection-charge revenues from any other telecom operators out of concern that doing so may breach the conditions of its concession contract with TOT. The state agency has yet to reply to AIS's question about whether it can accept the interconnection-charge revenues. TOT has suffered from the rejection of its access charges in favour of the interconnection-charge system. The analyst estimated that True Move would have to pay Bt1 billion in interconnection charges to other telecom firms this year. DTAC chief executive Sigve Brekke said his company ended up paying the net interconnection charge to True Move in the first quarter because it had heavy outgoing call campaigns in the period, while True Move also heavily promoted the calls within its network. "I believe we'll gain from interconnection charges from True Move in the second quarter," he said. AIS and DTAC have more than 20 million and 12 million subscribers, respectively, while True Move has more than 8 million. The interconnection charge, which was introduced by the National Telecommunications Commission last May, requires all telecom firms to share voice and data revenues bilaterally between the two networks involved in a call. As a result, the three main cellular operators have already signed bilateral interconnection deals. DTAC will have to pay AIS a net interconnection charge of about Bt1.5 billion for the first quarter. However, it has already saved about Bt500 million by stopping payment of access charges to TOT, amounting to about Bt2 billion a quarter.
Telecom Reporters The Nation
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