Legal disputes could slow industry

       More legal problems could impede the growth of the telecom industry by preventing the full implementation of three regulations issued by the National Telecommunications Commission, a telecom expert has warned.
       Anuparb Thiralarp, a former advisory member of the House Telecommunications Commission, said that at least three NTC regulations were likely to face challenges: mobile number port-ability, interconnection rates and standard contracts for consumers.
       The regulation for mobile number portability was issued on July 15 and became law after it was published in the Royal Gazette . It stipulates that mobile operators must be ready for people to use the service within three months,so that from the end of November mobile phone users can switch operators but retain their old numbers, he said.
       But private mobile phone operators have insisted they cannot meet the law's timeframe - a central traffic clearing system needs a year to be built and completed - and have informed the NTC, he said.
       The NTC's second headache is in-terconnection regulations, which became effective three years ago.
       But only three major mobile operators have entered the interconnection regime.
       The three operators merely book and clear their interconnection traffic fees on their financial statements as reserved items. The NTC has not penalised private operators that have yet to join the interconnection regime.
       A regulation on standard contracts also remains a paper tiger, despite being issued three years ago, he said.
       The standard contract between operators and customers is significant because it should protect customers in 11 aspects.
       Its clauses prohibit mobile operators from fixing expiry dates on prepaid cards,oblige operators to refund money left on prepaid cards and prevent operators from terminating services while engaged in legal disputes with customers.
       Mobile operators submitted copies of their standard contracts to the NTC for approval long ago and are still waiting for its endorsement, he said.
       These regulations have yet to be implemented and the consumer protection association on telecom services should speed up the process, he said.
       Mr Anuparb predicted legal disputes if customers wanted to take advantage of number portability but operators could not offer it.
       The Telecommunications Consumers Protection Institute and the NTC should be ready to receive complaints over this, he said.
       Several other problems between operators and customers are yet to be resolved, particularly operators who terminate the fixed-line or mobile services of defaulting customers and then demand fees and unpaid bills to restore services.
       The NTC told DTAC to refund a customer over this issue. But DTAC has appealed for a renewed investigation,he said.
       This case applied only to DTAC but other operators were still collecting reconnection fees, he said.