TOT mulls fate of 3 concessions

TOT's board last week ordered management to study what it should do with three concessions due to expire soon.

Spokesman Rathian Srimongkol said Advanced Info Service's concession would end in seven years and those of Jasmine Submarine and ComLink in two years.

The board laid down three choices - including for TOT to take over the concession holders' operations, but management has to consider if TOT would incur huge costs in doing so.

TOT could also ask the companies to run the three businesses on an outsourcing basis or TOT could dispose of all three of them.

AIS is the largest cellular service provider with over 25 million subscribers, while Jasmine Submarine operates an underwater fibre-optic cable system and ComLink offers a fibre-optic network service.

TOT has to start thinking about the future of the three concessions now, instead of waiting until they run out, Rathian said.

TOT and AIS have agreed to maximise the use of their telephone and wireless networks so TOT could avoid new network investments.

Rathian also said TOT is willing to pay the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) Bt89 million out of the Bt300 million overdue in three- and four-digit phone number fees.

TOT has already told the NTC that the regulator has to collect the remaining unpaid fees from those companies using the numbers. The move is part of TOT's policy of showing respect to the grantor of its licences after long opposition to many of its regulations.

Early this week TOT would withdraw its petition with the Central Administrative Court, in which it contends the watchdog has no regulatory power to collect number fees from TOT, since the state enterprise already had the numbers before the NTC was set up more than three years ago.

TOT's board also directed management to find a way to settle the court disputes with its concession holders, True Corp and TT&T .

True has filed four legal cases against TOT, while TOT has countersued True the same number of times.

TOT and TT&T have filed three legal cases at each other.