NBTC demands share of revenue
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A PANEL of the National Broad-|casting and Telecommunications Commission has concluded that TrueMove will have to pass on Bt1.4 billion and Digital Phone Co (DPC) Bt200 million in revenue to the NBTC in compliance with rules governing their operations aft
After their concessions ended, the NBTC permitted them to continue migrating customers who had failed to move to other networks for a year, a so-called remedy period. Any revenue for the operators, less expenses, during that period would have to be passed on to the state.
The NBTC panel tasked with tallying the two telecoms’ revenue recently concluded that from September 16, 2013, to July 17 last year, TrueMove made revenue of Bt1.4 billion and DPC Bt200 million.
However, TrueMove has insisted that it suffered a loss from its operations during that period from launching campaigns to migrate customers to other networks.
Currently TrueMove still has about 4 million subscribers in the network, while DPC has about 1,000.
A source at the commission said the NBTC office had asked both operators to clarify their costs again. Then it will submit its conclusion for the consideration of the NBTC telecom committee.
The source added that this case might end up in court because of the different opinions of the NBTC and the two telcos on the revenue issue.
“While the NBTC has insisted that both have to hand over their revenue, both operators have insisted that they did not make revenue but instead suffered losses from providing service to customers during the remedy period,” the source said.
In the meantime CAT Telecom, which owned TrueMove’s concession, has asked TrueMove to pay it Bt12 billion for utilising the state agency’s network during the remedy period. TrueMove has insisted that it will pay only Bt700 million to CAT.
The NBTC was set to reallocate TrueMove’s and DPC’s bandwidth on the 1,800-megahertz spectrum via auction after the remedy period ended last July. But the NBTC had to extend the remedy period for both operators for another year after the military seized power and its National Council for Peace and Order ordered the watchdog to suspend its plan to auction the 1,800MHz bands for 12 months. In March this year, the ad |hoc National Digital Economy Committee gave the nod to the NBTC to auction the 1,800MHz bands late this year.
