AIS challenges NBTC fee demand
ADVANCED Info Service has declined to pay the National Broadcasting and Telecommuni-cations Commission a fee of Bt125 million for use of the 900MHz spectrum to serve its customers on an interim basis following the expiry of its concession last September.
AIS said the fee payment regulation is unfair as it set a minimum fee payment unlike the previous regulation that did not set a minimum payment. The previous rule had applied in the cases of True Move and Digital Phone Co for using the 1800MHz spectrum after their concession ended on September 2013, while the current rule applies to AIS.
The company sent the letter to the NBTC on Tuesday that it was willing to pay this fee under the previous rule.
On December 18 last year, AIS had filed a case with the Central Administrative Court against the existing regulation.
On May 10, the NBTC had demanded Bt125 million from AIS for using the 900MHz spectrum since last October, when its concession ended, till March 31 this year. AIS was required to pay within seven days of receiving the NBTC letter. The money would be transferred to the state coffers.
Recently AIS was allowed by the National Council for Peace and Order to extend the deadline to switch off its 900MHz services to June 30 this year from the deadline of April 14 set by the Central Administrative Court.
Under the NBTC’s new remedy period regulations, AIS has to initially transfer such spectrum-use fee during the remedy period to NBTC at a rate not lower than its concession fee in the last year of service operation.
After this initial payment, AIS will also have to pay a similar fee to the NBTC again based on the remaining revenue after deducting expenses.
According to the AIS concession contract, AIS paid 30 per cent of total revenue to TOT from its post-paid cellular service and 20 per cent from its prepaid cellular service.
But the Bt125-million payment is based on the rate of prepaid service concession fee of 20 per cent as all its existing users during the remedy period are in the prepaid service.
The NBTC last year asked True Corp to pay a similar fee, as its subsidiary TrueMove had continued to provide the service on 1800MHz |to customers until November 2015 after its concession ended in September 2013.
The total fee for the period from September 2013 to July 2014 totalled Bt1.069 billion.
However, both parties have yet to settle the final amount that TrueMove has to pay.
