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Published on July 18, 2007

National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) secretary-general Suranan Wongvithayakamjorn yesterday said the committee would focus on three issues.

One is the NTC's implementation of the Universal Service Obligation (USO) regulations as applied to TOT.

The USO stipulates each licensee must pay 4 per cent of revenues per year to the USO fund if it declines to promote telecom services in remote areas. That fund will be spent to hire other companies to offer telecom services in remote areas.

TOT has achieved only 20 per cent of its three-year USO plan, which started three years ago.

The other two issues the committee will focus on are the practices of TOT under the licence and the state agency's management of its telephone-number resources.

As of last December, TOT had paid Bt134 million of the number fee to the licensing body, with another Bt723 million overdue.

The NTC charges Bt1 per number monthly for the existing numbers of the licensees and Bt2 per number monthly for their new numbers.

TOT paid a total licence fee of Bt1.495 billion and a frequency fee of Bt114 million as of last year.

The NTC and TOT also yesterday discussed the access-charge problem. Suranan and acting TOT president Natee Sukonrat said the case would end in a positive manner but declined to reveal details of the discussion.

The access charge is the cost Total Access Communication (DTAC), True Move and Digital Phone - all holdings concessions from CAT Telecom - have paid to TOT for connecting to different networks via TOT's facilities.

DTAC and True Move stopped paying the charge to TOT last November, instead paying it the lower interconnection fees by citing the need to comply with NTC regulations which require operators to share voice and data revenues between networks involved in a call.

Usanee Mongkolporn

The Nation