1 On 28 September 2007, Singapore Telecommunications Limited (“SingTel”) submitted an appeal to the Minister for Information, Communications and the Arts under Section 69(7) of the Telecommunications Act against the Info-communications Development Authority's (“IDA”) direction dated 14 September 2007 on the recovery of One-Time System Set-Up Charges (“OTSSC”) for Tail Local Leased Circuits (“TLLCs”) as an Interconnection-Related Service (“IRS”).

2. In its Direction dated 14 September 2007 to SingTel, IDA had approved SingTel’s recovery of a quantum of S$17,130.98, comprising costs incurred to set up an Order Provisioning and Fault Reporting Management System and a portion of its Manpower costs for analysis, development and testing of work processes (“Manpower ADT costs”). However, IDA rejected SingTel’s request to recover IS Billing costs and IS Journaling costs, as well as Manpower-related costs comprising Manpower Billing costs, Manpower Training costs, and the remainder of its Manpower ADT costs. Subsequently, by a letter dated 28 September 2007, SingTel appealed to the Minister to set aside IDA’s aforesaid Direction and allow SingTel to recover the costs that IDA had rejected (i.e. IS Billing costs, IS Journaling costs, and Manpower-related costs).

3 As part of the appeal process, the Minister carefully considered the representations from both the IDA and SingTel. The Minister kept in mind that the the principles of OTSSC recovery arising from SingTel’s provisioning of TLLCs as an IRS must be complied with in its entirety. The aforesaid principles of OTSSC recovery had been set out in the Minister’s Decision of 23 Jan 2007 regarding SingTel’s 26 April 2006 appeal against IDA’s Decision for SingTel to modify its Reference Interconnection Offer (RIO) to provide for TLLCs as an IRS.

4. Based on the issues brought up on appeal against IDA’s Direction dated 14 September 2007, the Minister’s decision in this appeal is that SingTel is to comply with IDA’s aforesaid Direction, except as varied below:

SingTel is also permitted to recover Information Systems costs related to the configuration of its automated billing system in the provision of TLLCs as an IRS, totaling S$8,625. Accordingly, SingTel is permitted to impose an OTSSC up to a maximum sum of S$25,755.98 in its RIO to provide TLLCs as an IRS.

5. The Minister has instructed IDA to implement the above decision expeditiously.
===

26 June 2008
Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts