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Published on August 28, 2007

Areepong Bhoocha-oom, director-general of the State Enterprise Policy Office, said yesterday that the dispute has had a negative impact on government revenues.

He denied a report that the ICT Ministry had come up with a solution for the dispute among two state enterprises, TOT and CAT Telecom, and private telecom companies and reported this to the Finance Ministry. He said the issue was currently under the consideration of the ICT Ministry.

Areepong said the dispute has had a negative impact on government revenues worth about Bt10 billion as private telecom companies have refused to pay the access charge.

ICT Minister Sitthichai Pookaiya-udom said yesterday that he had yet to talk with the Finance Ministry about the matter.

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

However, DTAC and True Move stopped paying the charge to TOT last November and have turned to adopt the interconnection charge of the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC).

The interconnection regulations require all telecom operators that signed bilateral interconnection agreements to share voice and data revenues between the networks involved in the calls.

TOT has demanded that CAT pay the access charge to TOT and recommended CAT to ask for compensation from DTAC and True Move. But CAT refused to do so in order to avoid the adverse financial impact.

Then CAT consulted with the NTC, which in turned suggested that both the ICT Ministry, which oversees the state telecom agencies, and the Finance Ministry, which owns 100 per cent of CAT and TOT, consult together to find a solution.

TOT has earned access charges of around Bt14 billion per year.

In a related development, the State Enterprise Policy Office will again offer the SOE Award for outstanding state enterprises in order to encourage them to improve their performance.

The SOE Award has been held since 2005 and has contributed to the improvement of performance, said Areepong. PTT was awarded for making high profits in 2005 and 2006. 

Wichit Chaitrong

 The Nation