The company also plans to file a lawsuit asking the Central Administrative Court to revoke the interconnection regulations set by the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), TOT acting president Colonel Natee Sukolrat said yesterday.

Natee said TOT would soon send a letter informing the NTC of its disagreement with the order, which was issued last Monday.

NTC chairman Choochart Phromprasid said the telecom regulator would wait to see the letter before making a decision, but insisted that TOT had to comply with the interconnection regulations, which took effect in May last year.

Natee said that according to agreements with DTAC and CAT Telecom, the access charge had nothing to do with network interconnection but was compensation owed to TOT following its adjustment of DTAC's network system to be the same as that of rival cellular operator Advanced Info Service (AIS).

DTAC operates under a concession from CAT, while AIS holds a TOT concession.

Earlier, DTAC operated with seven-digit numbers while AIS used nine-digit numbers including the prefix "01" and, unlike AIS subscribers, DTAC subscribers were billed for receiving calls. On orders from the erstwhile transport and communications ministry, TOT adjusted the system so that DTAC's service was the same as AIS.

As CAT concessionaires, DTAC, True Move and Digital Phone all paid access charges to TOT for connecting their subscribers to other networks via TOT's facilities. The state agency earned about Bt14 billion per year from access fees.

DTAC and True Move stopped paying access charges to TOT last November after adopting the NTC's interconnection regulations. DTAC has offered to pay interconnection fees to TOT instead of the access charge, but TOT has declined to accept the money.

TOT says DTAC and True Move together owe about Bt7.5 billion in unpaid access charges.

TOT and CAT recently reach-ed an agreement to file lawsuits against DTAC and True Move over the unpaid charges. Under the plan, TOT will ask CAT to settle the access charges and CAT will then demand compensation from the two operators, as permitted under its concession terms.

According to TOT's access-charge contracts with CAT concession holders, it can demand that CAT pay the access charges on behalf of its concession holders if they decline to pay.

Natee said TOT was waiting for CAT to get the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Ministry's permission to pay the charges.

DTAC shares closed at Bt40.50 the Stock Exchange of Thailand yesterday, down from Bt41.75.

Access charges accounted for Bt14.6 billion of TOT's total revenue of around Bt60 billion last year. Of total access charges, Bt9.4 billion was from DTAC, Bt3.8 billion from True Move, Bt400 million from Digital Phone, and the rest from CAT's overseas call service.

Nearly 60 per cent of the amount paid by DTAC came from its prepaid call service.

TOT acting chief finance officer Watcharee Tabcharoen said the company had received a total of Bt497 million as access charges from Digital Phone and CAT in the first quarter this year.

The state agency expects total net profit to remain flat this year at Bt6 billion.

In a separate matter, Ruengdet Luengboriboon, chairman of the People Power for Justice, filed a police complaint accusing Information and Communications Technology Minister Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom and Excise Department director-general Visut Srisupan of causing the country a loss of more than Bt1 billion by cutting the telecom excise to zero.

The telecom excise was previously 11 per cent for cellular operators and 2 per cent for fixed-line operators.

Sitthichai said he had not cut the tax but merely proposed that the Cabinet to revoke a 2003 resolution that let telecom operators deduct excise tax from their revenues first and apply the revenue-sharing formulas with their concessionaires to the remaining amount.

The resolution and the telecom excise rates were decisions of the previous government, he said.

Usanee Mongkolporn

The Nation