(Bangkok Post via NewsEdge) TOT has reiterated its ultimatum to DTAC and True Move to confirm payment of access charges or find their three million new mobile phone numbers blocked from connecting to its fixed-line network.
Continued defiance could prompt the state-owned company to block access to its network for all 25 million mobile numbers, about 18 million of them active, held by the two companies, said Supa Piyajitti, a TOT director and deputy permanent secretary to the Finance Ministry.
She also said that since DTAC and True Move operated under concessions from CAT Telecom, it would responsible for paying access charges on behalf of the two private operators.
If CAT Telecom insisted that it could not pay the charges, then it must ask TOT to block their numbers from TOT's fixed-line network, she said.
DTAC and True Move maintain that the new interconnection rates, the fees operators charge each other for handling calls across networks, now take precedence over access charges paid to state telecom agencies.
TOT president Somkual Bruminhent said DTAC and True Move had stopped paying access charges since November and now owed 3.54 billion bath ($97 million).
He said access charges for the whole year would total about 13 billion bath ($362.8 million).
DTAC chief executive Sigve Brekke said his company would petition the Administrative Court to seek a resolution in the dispute with TOT. He believed the court would take only a few days to settle the case in the interest of consumers.
© 2007 Bangkok Post
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