CAT to lobby TOT with presentation

The Nation (1 December 2007)

CAT Telecom will make a presentation to TOT next week about the benefits the telecom industry would gain from adopting the interconnection-charge regulations of the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC).

CAT chairman Montree Sungkasap late this week said the company's board approved the findings of a study of interconnection- and access-charge regulations.

The result shows that the interconnection-charge regulations would lead to fair competition in the industry and significantly cut telecom operators' operating costs, which would enable them to pass benefits on to consumers.

Montree will present the study results to TOT chairman Saprang Kalayanamitr, as well as the Finance Ministry, which owns both TOT and CAT.

The NTC introduced the interconnection-charge regulations in November 2006. They require all telecom operators to share voice and data revenue fairly between any networks involved in a call.

The access charge is the cost that all of CAT's private cellular concessionaires - Total Access Communication (DTAC), True Move, and Digital Phone - have paid to TOT for connecting different networks via TOT's facilities. CAT wants to comply with the regulations and if possible stop paying the access charge to TOT.

CAT president Phisal Jorphochaudom said CAT might need to speak with TOT about terminating the access-charge agreements.

CAT has also paid monthly access charges to TOT for Hutchison-CAT on the basis of Bt200 per post-paid user and 18 per cent of revenue from prepaid users, which it deems a heavy burden. Hutchison-CAT is a cellular-service marketer joint venture between TOT and CAT.

Besides the access charge, CAT must share half of its revenue from Hutch with TOT under an access-charge agreement between TOT and CAT.

Currently, major telecom operators - Advanced Info Service, DTAC, True Move - have signed bilateral interconnection-charge deals with each other.

TOT opposes the regulations, which it says has affected the existing bilateral access-charge agreements between TOT and CAT's private cellular concessionaires.

DTAC and True Move stopped paying the access charge to TOT in November 2006 and adopted the interconnection charge instead, prompting TOT to file a civil suit against them to demand outstanding access fees of Bt10 billion from DTAC and Bt4 billion from True Move.

Since coming under the access-charge regulations with TOT in 1994, DTAC and True Move have so far paid a combined total of Bt62.417 billion in access fees to TOT.

Last week, CAT resubmitted the interconnection plan for NTC consideration in a bid to come under new telecom regulations.

NTC wants a sweeter deal

The Nation (3 December 2007)

UK consultant 'asking too much for 3G advice'

The national telecom-regulator is asking the UK's Intercon-nection Communications to lower its fee when it hires the consultant to draft the terms and conditions of awarding a 3G broadband cellular spectrum licences.

National Telecommunica-tions Commission (NTC) secretary-general Suranan Wongvi-thayakamjorn said recently that the NTC was price-bargaining with Interconnection Commu-nications but declined to go into details.

He said the licensing body was expected to wrap up the deal with the UK firm this week.
The NTC has a budget of Bt24 million for the consultancy.

"After the signing the company will have to start work immediately and present us with the results in three months," he said.

Interconnection Communi-cations was selected out of six firms the NTC invited to serve as its consultant on drafting the licences. The others were Ovum, Spectrum Strategy, the UK's Analysis, Germany's Detacon and the US firm Nera.

They were short-listed from 18 companies jointly recommended to the NTC by the World Bank and the UN's International Telecommunications Union.

The adviser will help the NTC determine the market demand for 3G services, the appropriate number of spectrum licences, the bandwidth of 3G frequencies to be used, licence fees and licensing regulations.

The 3G spectrum will enable cellular operators to offer bandwidth-hungry content to 3G phone-users at blazing speed.

The allocation of 3G frequency licences has been delayed for years due to the absence of a National Broadcasting Commis-sion (NBC).

The Frequency Allocation Act mandates that NTC and NBC set up a joint panel to allocate telecom and broadcasting frequencies and prescribe their use.

The Council of State cleared the way for the NTC to issue 3G licences by ruling that the NTC could allocate new frequencies but for telecom services only.

However, uncertainty re-mains, given that the new Constitution mandates the establishment of a new single regulator the National Broad-casting and Telecommu-nications Commission (NBTC) to oversee the markets. The frequency-allocation law is also undergoing amendment to support the NBTC formulation.

Despite that, the NTC has moved ahead in drafting the 3G licence regulations in accordance with its plan.