The board of the National Telecommunications Commission yesterday finalised the interconnection rate between CAT Telecom and Total Access Communication (DTAC) at 50 satang per minute.
NTC acting secretary-general Takorn Tantasit said the rate came into immediate effect, but did not apply retroactively.
The watchdog's interconnection regulations require the networks of callers to pay a fee to the network of call-receivers at the rate agreed bilaterally among the various network owners.
DTAC chief commercial officer Thana Tienachariya said it was good that the NTC had reached a decision and put it into effect.
CAT owns the Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) service in 51 provinces, while its joint venture Hutchison-CAT Wireless Multimedia provides the service on a separate CDMA network in the other 25 provinces.
CAT had earlier proposed paying an interconnection fee of 21 satang per minute for the CDMA service to DTAC, but the operator refused, saying the rate was too low.
DTAC then asked the NTC's dispute settlement institute to consider imposing an interim rate. The institute determined a rate of 56 satang, before the NTC board arrived at the final rate of 50 satang yesterday.
Advanced Info Service, DTAC and True Move have paid each other an interconnection rate of Bt1 per minute on a bilateral basis under interim agreements. They are expected to review the matter soon by referring to the lower rate set by the NTC board for CAT and DTAC.
