NTC sticks to 3-digit prefixes for overseas calls

NTC sticks to 3-digit prefixes for overseas calls
The Nation (19 October 2007)

The national telecom operator decided yesterday to continue promoting three-digit phone numbers for international connections and approved the allocation of new international-call numbers.

The decision followed a meeting last week between the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) and private operators, which devised two options to pave the way for a further opening up of the international-call market. One is to continue granting the three-digit numbers to applicants for international-call licences and the other is to switch instead to four-digit numbers to solve the shortage of existing numbers for such calls. NTC deputy secretary-general Takorn Tantasit said the board had approved the plan to allocate the numbers from 102 to 109 as new international-call prefixes, to be granted to future applicants for licences. It also approved the allocation of the existing 006 prefix to True International Communications and the 004 prefix to DTAC Network. The watchdog granted licences to both companies early this year but had yet to give them the numbers to offer the service, given that it has only 004 and 006 left in hand. CAT Telecom gave back its 004 prefix to the NTC last week and the licensing body has continued urging TOT to return 002 and 003 for reallocation as international-call prefixes. The NTC is likely to grant the 102 number to TT&T to provide an international-call service under its licence. Meanwhile, the three major cellular operators - Advanced Info Service, Total Access Communication and True Move - together recently asked the NTC to impose the interconnection-charge regulations on holders of type-1 Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) licences. The type-1 licence is for applicants without a network. The three operators found that some VoIP licensees had dumped the call traffic to their networks via TOT's international gateway. Therefore they feel that such licensees should share the interconnection fees with them. The interconnection regulations require all telecom operators with large networks to fairly share voice and data revenues between two networks involved in a call. This is to discourage them from dumping traffics to each other's networks. Before complaining to the NTC, the three cellular operators had asked TOT to look into the matter. However, the state agency refused to do so. Takorn said the NTC would look into the matter.