Partners face push on fee row

Real Moves’ third-generation cellular service, under the CAT-True partnership, is facing a shortage of phone-number allocations. Recently the NBTC’s number allocation committee declined to approve an additional 1.75 million numbers to CAT, which it would pass on to Real Move. Real Move is CAT’s 3G service provider under the True Move H brand.

NBTC said it could not allocate the new numbers after CAT’s refusal to pay an overdue fee of Bt6 million to the watchdog for the first lot of 1.75 million numbers granted to CAT. The payment was due in April.

CAT claimed the fee payment was pending the completion of probes by state authorities into the legality of the deals it made with True Corp for a 3G service partnership. 

Settapong Malisuwan, chairman of the NBTC’s telecom committee, said the problem should be cleared as soon as possible. Both parties must work out a solution.

Real Move is targeting 4 million customers this year, up from the current 1.7 million.

NBTC has twice ordered its licence holder CAT to pay the overdue fees, plus a fine of 2 per cent of the fee for the 1.75 million numbers, worth Bt3 million per month.

CAT had requested about 5 million mobile-phone numbers this year for Real Move. The watchdog approved only 3.5 million.

Real Move is targeting 4 million customers this year, up from 1.7 million at present.

Meanwhile, the NBTC is set to finish the draft of 3G auction licences ready for a public hearing this July. Settapong said the telecom committee was expected to decide on the reserve price for 3G licences early next month and would complete an information memorandum by the end of June.