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Published on November 17, 2007

TOT spokesman Natee Sukolrat yesterday said the state agency filed two charges, the first against both CAT Telecom as the first defendant and DTAC as the second defendant to demand Bt10 billion of outstanding access fees from DTAC.

The second charge is against CAT and True Move to demand Bt4 billion in outstanding access fees from True Move.

CAT owns the concessions of the two private cellular operators.

DTAC chief executive Sigve Brekke declined to comment on the matter, pending a detailed study of the charge, but he added that the case would not affect DTAC's shares, given that the market has been expecting a possible legal suit.

An analyst of one foreign brokerage house had a positive view on the legal charge, saying that it would make things clearer.

"The access-charge dispute has lingered for years, so it's good that the case was finally brought to court. Whatever the verdict is, the situation in the telecommunications industry will start to get clearer," he added.

Likewise, CAT's chief finance officer Jirayuth Rungsrithong said TOT's lawsuit would lead to the end of the prolonged dispute.

The National Telecom-munications Commission (NTC) has made it clear many times that it cannot intervene in the access dispute, citing the fact that the access-fee contract was written before the NTC's establishment and it is a bilateral agreement between TOT and the CAT's three private mobile concessions, DTAC, True Move and Digital Phone (DPC).

The access charge is the cost the three companies have paid to TOT to connect different networks through TOT's facilities.

DTAC and True Move stopped paying the charge last November and have preferred to comply with the interconnection-charge regulations of the NTC instead.

Taking effect last November, the interconnection regulations mandate that all telecom operators  share voice and data revenue on a fair basis among the networks involved in the calls.

TOT has collected access fees of Bt14 billion per year.

Yesterday DPC returned to paying the access fee to TOT to avoid the possible civil lawsuit. It paid the overdue access fee for May to September totalling Bt72 million to TOT.

DPC had continued paying the access fee to TOT after the interconnection regulations took effect but later changed

its mind and stopped paying the fee.

Usanee Mongkolporn

 The Nation