National Telecom to scrap 007 & 008 international telephone call prefixes from 01 June 2021
Move will save over B12m a year in costs
National Telecom (NT) will scrap 007 and 008 international telephone call prefixes from June 1 to save at least 12 million baht a year in costs, leaving only 001 and 009 in service.
The move comes after state telecom enterprises CAT Telecom and TOT merged into NT in January this year.
Before the merger, TOT provided 007 and 008 international call services while CAT offered 001 and 009 services.
The approach is meant to reduce redundancy of the two enterprises’ international direct dialling (IDD) services.
Dhanant Subhadrabandhu, senior executive vice-president for marketing at NT, said the move can save at least 12 million baht a year in international circuit rental and related fees.
“The move is in line with synergy between TOT and CAT after the merger into NT since Jan 7,” said Mr Dhanant.
He said the company will also run a discount promotion for international calls to 18 destinations with 009 prefix from May 1 to Sept 30.
The 009 prefix comes with affordable international telephone service while 001 provides high voice quality service, chiefly targeting corporate customers.
For example, a call to popular destinations — such as Canada, China, Hawaii, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and the US — will be charged at 2 baht per minute for both landline and mobile phones, down from 2.5 baht.
A call to neighbouring countries — Cambodia, Myanmar and Vietnam — will be charged at 3.5 baht per minute for both landline and mobile phones, down from 10 baht.
He said focusing only on 001 and 009 prefixes can strengthen existing resources and management while reducing operational costs and facilitating customers via the single bill payment system.
Mr Dhanant said the company will enhance quality and capacity of its IDD service for large corporates through back-up international circuits while customers will also receive a single bill that involves domestic landline calls and international calls.
He said although the use of international call service continues to decline in line with technological change, the service is still necessary particularly for organisation customers.
NT has more than 500 service centres available for bill payment and information giving.
The merger of TOT and CAT is aimed at pulling together infrastructure assets held by the two enterprises, worth more than 200 billion baht in total.
The completed integration, including transfer of the two organisations’ units, can be expected in the next 18 months.
The synergy of the two is anticipated to reduce an investment cost of 4.1 billion baht and an operational cost of 8 billion baht.
NT has more than 17,000 employees. Its assets comprise 25,000 telecom towers, nine routes of submarine cables, total spectrum of 600MHz of bandwidth on six spectrum ranges, 4,000 kilometres of cable conduits, 4 million fibre-optics cores and 13 data centres and international call services.
Source: https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/2107431/national-telecom-to-scrap-007-008-prefixes-in-june
