Telecom firms flout mobile phone rules

       Toothless state agencies are enabling powerful telecom giants to reap huge and unfair revenues from pre-paid mobile phone users, a seminar has been told.
       Thousands of customers have complained of unjust treatment by telecom companies through methods such as selling them pre-paid credit for mobile phones which expires before they have a chance to use it, said Thianchai na Nakorn, a member of the National Telecommunications Commission's panel on contract regulation.
       More than 1,400 users in the central and eastern regions have claimed they lost credit because of an early expiry date on their pre-paid cards, he said.
       Mr Thianchai told a seminar at the NTC on Friday the law was too general to control telecom companies, and state agencies were reluctant to enforce the measures at their disposal.
       The NTC and the Office of the Consumer Protection Board (OCPB) are in charge of controlling the industry.
       Other mobile phone customers lost money because purchased credits were "not usable". Many customers who paid by the month for their mobile service were forced to accept changes to the terms without notice.
       Ninety percent of Thailand's 58 million active mobile phone numbers are paid for on pre-paid credit.
       NTC commissioner Sudharma Yoonaidharma said millions of users could have lost money in unused credits.The money went back to telecom businesses as "free revenue".
       The NTC issued a notification in 2006 prohibiting licensed operators from setting an expiry date on pre-paid credit services.
       However, telecom companies continued to set expiry dates because the fines they face for flouting the notification are too small to act as a deterrent. They also retain any unused credit which customers lose when their prepaid credit expires before it has been fully used.
       The 2006 notification does allow the NTC to ask operators to refund unused credits to users, or fine them if they refuse. However, the fines were too small to be meaningful, and the alternative penalty - revoking an operator's licence - too stiff to be useful.
       Since the industry is dominated by a handful of big operators, revoking an operator's licence could disrupt services to millions of subscribers and users.
       "The NTC wouldn't dare to suspend or halt the operation of a multi-billionbaht business just for this kind of violation," he said.
       "It's a problem of how the agency sets its regulations."
       The agency normally imposes fines instead, but these are too small to make a difference.
       "The NTC needs a law stipulating specific requirements for pre-paid services," he said.
       Ronchai Thongsri, an OCPB official,accepted his agency lacked the authority to control service providers.
       The OCPB has only one regulation,issued in 2000, which controls contractual obligations for mobile phone services paid for by the month, he said.
       It has no regulations governing prepaid services, and is not certain whether it should take a role in regulating this kind of service or leave it to the NTC,the official said.
       Mr Thianchai said the OCPB should issue new regulations to give itself more power and keep up with developments in the industry.