Get Going On 3G Contract Fixes, C A T And True Told

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Get going on 3G contract fixes, CAT and True told
Usanee Mongkolporn
The Nation

BANGKOK: -- The office of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission has ordered CAT Telecom and True Group to speed up their joint amendment of their third-generation service-partnership contracts to comply with the 2010 Frequency Allocation Law.

NBTC secretary-general Takorn Tantasit said yesterday that the office was eager to see the contracts, under which True and CAT planned to cooperate to establish 3G cellular service on the 850-megahertz spectrum, brought into line with the law.

However, it remains to be seen whether CAT is similarly eager to clear up the matter. Recently it insisted that before it and True could go ahead on the amendment, it had to wait for the Council of State's opinion on whether the contracts needed to comply with the Public Private Joint Venture Act. It also wants to wait for Cabinet approval of its plan to spend Bt29 billion on the 3G service under this partnership.

The NBTC ordered CAT and True last June to amend six items in the partnership contracts after its panel found that these items breached the Frequency Allocation Law. The amendment must show that CAT has full management control of the 3G-850MHz network both CAT and True group have jointly utilised to provide broadband cellular service.

Draft regulations

Meanwhile, the NBTC board yesterday approved three draft regulations on telecom-infrastructure sharing. These deal with mobile-network sharing, mobile-network roaming, and mobile virtual network service. The draft will be published in the Royal Gazette. The regulations are aimed at enabling the three holders of 2.1-gigahertz licences to set up nationwide networks quickly.

The board also approved draft regulations on the universal service obligation (USO) tax, which will be put to a hearing by a focus group among the relevant parties for 30 days.

The key amendment in this draft is that licence holders with annual net revenue not exceeding Bt40 million will not have to contribute to the USO fund, a change from the present threshold of Bt20 million. If revenue exceeds Bt40 million, only the excess amount will be subject to the annual 3.75 per cent USO tax.

The new draft also allows licence holders to deduct 60 per cent of their expenses related to payments to international operators, such as that incurred from providing international roaming services, from their total revenue before calculating the USO tax. Currently that deduction is limited to 50 per cent of the cost of such international payments.


-- The Nation 2013-04-20