TRUE-CAT 3G contracts
The voluntary joint amendments sought by the national telecom regulator to True Corp and CAT Telecom's 3G service collaboration contracts range from their exclusive use of 3G equipment to the bandwidth capacity CAT has to allocate to Real Move.
The board of the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) passed resolutions last week that both have to jointly and voluntarily amend these details within 30 days to comply with its anti-monopoly regulations. If they fail to do so within the period, the NTC will issue orders asking them to do so.
The NTC board will convene this week to endorse last week’s resolution before formally informing both of them to make the amendments.
The first amendment involves CAT’s deal of leasing the High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) equipment from BKFT (Thailand), which is part of True Group. The clause states that CAT has agreed to lease the equipment and telecom towers from BKFT and BKFT has agreed to lease such equipment to CAT only. The other clause states that CAT has the exclusive right to benefit from the BKFT telecom towers that it has leased.
The NTC also wants both to revise some clauses in the 3G bandwidth capacity wholesale-resale deal between CAT and True subsidiary Real Move. The clause obliges CAT to provide sufficient wholesale 3G capacity at the agreed bandwidth to Real Move at all times to enable it to provide service to customers from the first day of the service debut throughout the contract period. The agreed bandwidth includes CAT’s average network capacity and a maximum 80 per cent of network capacity Real Move is eligible to use during the first three years. The other clause is that CAT can wholesale the bandwidth left after wholesaling to Real Move to other parties but the deals CAT will grant them have to contain the same conditions as the CAT-Real Move deal.
Another clause is about indiscriminate treatment. It says that if CAT enters into a wholesale deal and offers them better conditions, CAT will have to amend the CAT-Real Move contract to be on par with the wholesale deal it makes with the other party.
True Corp and CAT last week separately said they were willing to look into the details and amend them.
The NTC board also concluded last week that it would ask the ICT Ministry, the Finance Ministry, and also the National Economic and Social Development Board to review if the deals have to be regulated by the 1992 Public-Private Joint Venture Act.
The Office of the Attorney-General replied to the ICT Ministry in April that the deals do not have to be subject to the Public-Private Joint Venture Act. The NTC will also ask the upcoming National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) to consider if the deals breach Article 46 (2) of the 2010 Frequency Allocation Act.
The article obligates licence-holders to utilise their spectra to provide service on their own, instead of allowing other parties to do so on their behalf.
