TOT gears up for 2 months of AIS talks
A committee set up by TOT to revise the concession contract of Advanced Info Service (AIS) is expected to finish guidelines for negotiating the revisions with AIS within one week.
The committee's chairman, Bannawit Kengrien, said the negotiations with AIS were expected to take about two months. He said the panel aimed to wrap up the negotiation process within the term of the interim government, which ends in October. The committee met Information and Communications Technology Minister Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom yesterday to ask for guidelines. The ministry told the committee that the negotiation must give top priority to national interests and consumers as well TOT, but, at the same time, the private operator must be able to continue with its business. The Council of State ruled last month that past revisions of concession contracts involving four private cellular operators - AIS, Total Access Communication (DTAC), True Move and Digital Phone Co - did not comply with the 1992 Public-Private Joint Venture Act. However, the amendments still have a binding affect. It said the Cabinet could consider revoking or maintaining the amended contracts. The 1992 law mandates that joint-venture projects need the Cabinet's approval if their value is Bt1 billion or more. After the Council of State's ruling, state concession owners TOT and CAT Telecom both set up committees to negotiate with the four concessionaires to make the past amendments comply with the law. The results of the negotiations will be submitted for the Cabinet's approval. TOT owns the AIS concession. One of AIS's key concession amendments provided for the reduction of its prepaid concession fees to a flat rate of 20 per cent, applying from 2001 until the end of the concession. Before the amendment, and according to the original concession contract, AIS had to pay 25 per cent of its prepaid call revenues to TOT from 2001 to 2005, with the rate rising to 30 per cent from last year to the end of the concession in 2015. The ICT Ministry intends to revise the total concession fee rate of all four cellular operators to a uniform 30 per cent and adjust the period of the concessions so that they are all the same, to promote fair competition. Until now, the private cellular concessionaires have each paid an average 25-per-cent concession fee to TOT or CAT. The concessions of AIS and DTAC are currently due to expire in 2015 and 2018 respectively, while those of True Move and Digital Phone are due to end in 2013. Telecom Reporters The Nation
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