The National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) on Wednesday ordered all mobile-phone operators July 14 not to charge different rates for calls within ("on-net") and outside ("off-net") their own networks.
The order will take effect once the operators receive the letter from the NTC, expected to be next week. They will not be able to launch new on-net rate campaigns after the order is received. The NTC will issue another order later to inform the mobile-phone operators when they have to end their existing on-net campaigns.
Mobile-phone operators have launched on-net rate promotions featuring lower call charges than the off-net rate, to encourage their users to make calls within their own providers' networks. This is to avoid paying the large interconnection fee between different networks.
NTC regulations require the caller's network to pay the interconnection fee to the network of the call recipient. The more an operator's subscribers call different networks, the more it has to pay in interconnection fees.
Thana Thienachariya, head of corporate affairs and strategy for Total Access Communication, said DTAC would comply with the order, adding that this would affect consumers and not the company. Currently 80 per cent of its more than 20 million mobile phone subscribers are on the on-net rate.
Somchai Lertsutiwong, executive vice president for marketing of Advanced Info Service, said AIS had yet to receive the NTC order and would thoroughly study it. AIS has already prepared to cope with the order.
Somchai said the company would avoid impacting subscribers. It might seek a median rate between the on-net and off-net rates. For an example, if the on-net rate is 50 satang per minute and the off-net rate Bt1.50, AIS might charge Bt1 per minute for all calls to all networks.