CAT seeks Constitutional Court ruling on NBTC sharing rules
CAT Telecom is seeking a ruling by the Constitutional Court on the regulations regarding the sharing of telecom infrastructure.
The state enterprise claims that the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) issued unlawful regulations and lacked the authority to issue these regulations, and that the regulations are unconstitutional.
On May 7 it petitioned the Central Administrative Court to revoke these regulations, suspend their enforcement, prohibit any actions committed under these regulations and forward the legality issue to the Constitutional Court.
CAT is concerned that the regulations will allow the operators under its concessions to lease their networks, which belong to CAT, for their own gain. It believes this would violate its ownership rights to these network assets under the concessions. CAT cited the charters of 1997 and 2007 that protect the state telecom until the concessions end.
The NBTC issued the regulations last month to promote infrastructure sharing among all telecom operators, including those with concessions. According to these regulations, NBTC licence holders and also concession holders must allow other parties to use their infrastructure according to the terms and conditions stated in the regulations.
Recently Settapong Malisuwan, chairman of the NBTC’s telecom committee, said the commission was ready to defend itself in court in this case.
In the regulations, the definition of “telecom operators” that can pursue infrastructure sharing includes the holders of telecom concessions, which CAT views as unfair, as some of the holders still have unsettled network-ownership conflicts with CAT.
CAT has threatened to sue the NBTC ever since the regulations were at the drafting stage. It wanted the regulator to specify that concession holders that want to lease out network assets that have yet to be transferred to CAT, or which are still the subject of arbitration over ownership, must request CAT’s consent before sharing network-rental revenue with the agency. However, the telecom committee did not follow CAT’s request.
TrueMove, Digital Phone Co and Total Access Communication are still engaged in a dispute with CAT over ownership of cellular towers, of which DTAC has about 10,500, TrueMove 8,500 and DPC 187.
