Get fees yourself, CAT tells TOT

A CAT source said management had reached this decision, which is an about-turn from the previous agreement between TOT and CAT.

TOT had asked CAT to pay the unpaid access charge of Total Access Communication (DTAC) and True Move to TOT first and ask them for compensation later.

The CAT source said management would put the new idea to the board soon.

The source added that CAT, which has posted a net profit of around Bt4 billion per year, could not afford to pay TOT the overdue access charges of DTAC and True Move.

According to TOT, the combined overdue access charges of DTAC and True Move amount to over Bt7.5 billion. TOT has yet to specify the overdue access charge it plans to demand from CAT.

The access charge is the cost DTAC, True Move and Digital Phone, all CAT concessions, pay TOT for connecting different networks via TOT's facilities. TOT has earned around Bt14 billion from the access charge per year.

DTAC and True Move stopped paying TOT the access charge to last November and have instead paid it a network-interconnection fee to adopt the interconnection regulations of the National Telecommuni-cations Commission (NTC), which requires all telecom operators to bilaterally share voice and data revenue between the networks involved in the calls.

The CAT source added that CAT had written seeking help from the NTC on the possible financial effect of the unpaid access charges of DTAC and True Move. NTC secretary-general Suranan Wongvithayakamjorn said the NTC would ask CAT to send more details about the problem and would ask CAT and any related parties to enter a settlement process with the NTC dispute settlement committee.

Both TOT and CAT are NTC licensees.

CAT says it already has a lot of financial burdens. Its cellular-operator joint venture Hutchison-CAT Wireless Multimedia has paid TOT an access charge of Bt75 million monthly, or around Bt900 million per year.

CAT estimates that CAT and Hutchison-CAT have to pay a combined interconnection fee of Bt2.74 billion per year.

Of all telecom operators, only Advanced Info Service, True Move and DTAC have bilateral agreements to collect the interconnection fee from one another.

Usanee Mongkolporn

The Nation