CAT switches stance on some 3G issues

The changes range from CAT’s declining to support the joint ex-pansion of mobile phone number porting capacity by telecom operators to its refusal to pay an annual fee to the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) for mobile phone numbers the watchdog granted to CAT’s 3G network.
Under the helm of newly appointed chief executive officer Kitisak Sriprasert, CAT recently declined to push for Clearinghouse Co and five telecom operators to further expand their porting capacity from the present 2,500 numbers each per day.
Kitisak said expanding the porting capacity might prompt the exodus of customers from CAT’s private concession holders to other networks, which would affect CAT’s concession revenue.
Earlier, CAT and True Corp stood side by side to fight for the expansion of the porting capacity to facilitate TrueMove’s customers to conveniently switch to the Real Move 3G service. TrueMove’s concession ends next September.
Real Move and TrueMove are True’s cellular flagships. Real Move has leased CAT 3G bandwidth to provide service under the CAT-True group partnership deals. Real Move, which has one million customers, targets 4 million customers this |year.
An NBTC source said all telecom operators are likely to quickly expand porting capacity after they get NBTC 3G-2.1GHz licences and get their 2.1GHz networks off the ground, to enable them to move existing customers to their 2.1GHz networks.

NUMBERS MAINTAINED
Under the NBTC mobile number portability regulations, mobile phone users can maintain existing mobile phone numbers when they switch networks.
Clearinghouse was jointly founded by five telecom operators – Advanced Info Service, Total Access Communication, TrueMove, CAT and TOT – to handle the porting.
CAT has also refused to pay to the NBTC the annual mobile phone number fee of around Bt6.9 million, which was due on April 15. This fee is for the NBTC mobile phone numbers granted to CAT. Both CAT and Real Move use these numbers to offer 3G service.
Kitisak said CAT’s refusal to pay the fee is due to the ongoing probe into the legality of the CAT-True 3G service partnership deals by many state authorities.
The NBTC has already agreed to grant an additional 3.5 million mobile-phone numbers to CAT this year out of its request for 5.5 million. Of the total 3.5 million, 1.75 million have already been granted. Real Move has reportedly urged the watchdog to give it the remaining 1.75 million numbers.
Kitisak said that CAT is waiting for replies from the Council of State and the NBTC on whether the deals breach the Public-Private Joint Venture Act and the 2010 Frequency Allocation Law, respectively, so its own panel can conclude if the deals breach any law.
CAT set up the panel to scrutinise the deals, following the final conclusion of the ICT Ministry’s subcommittee that there were five irregularities in the ways the deals were made.
The NBTC’s subcommittee has also probed whether the deals breach the Frequency Allocation Law, which bans NBTC licence holders like CAT and TOT from allowing third parties to manage their spectra on their behalf.
NBTC commissioner Settapong Malisuwan said the watchdog had no authority to cancel CAT and |Real Move’s 3G service but could order them to amend the deals if |they were found to contradict the law.