The Ministry of Submit and Telecommunications’ resolution to droop the licence of outstanding web service supplier (ISP) Opennet won’t have an effect on the plans and providers for current clients, in keeping with ministry secretary of state So Visothy.
Opennet, whose authorized title is King Applied sciences Co Ltd, racked up greater than $6 million in debt to the state over the 2017-2019 interval, of which it paid simply over $1.3 million as of the February 17 due date set by the ministry.
Visothy advised The Submit that, on the time of the licence suspension, the ministry ordered Opennet to not present providers to new clients, or signal enterprise contracts with accomplice firms.
“The ministry will take motion in accordance with the phrases and situations of the licence, in addition to relevant legal guidelines and rules, in order that Opennet can repay its debt and minimise affect on customers,” he mentioned.
Motion taken in opposition to the corporate is mainly outlined in Article 78 of the Regulation on Telecommunications, within the part on penalty provisions.
Visothy affirmed that with 38 equally licensed firms at the moment working in Cambodia, the suspension of Opennet’s licence won’t considerably have an effect on aggressive market situations, costs or choices for Web entry.
Regardless of mounting considerations amongst its clients over the destiny of their web providers, Opennet has but to concern an announcement as of press time.
The senior telecoms official mentioned the ministry had ordered Opennet for greater than half a 12 months to pay its remaining debt to the state, directions that the corporate selected to disregard.
The telecoms ministry and the Ministry of Economic system and Finance on February 10 collectively issued a last discover to the ISP, giving it seven days to pay up, which it did not do.
In accordance with Visothy, the licence can be reinstated if the agency pays off all money owed owed to the state.
In 2020, the variety of web customers in Cambodia amounted to eight.86 million, or 52.6 per cent of the overall inhabitants, in keeping with a report by Canada-based social media administration platform Hootsuite.
That 12 months, social media customers numbered 12 million, or 71.3 per cent of the inhabitants, and cell service customers totalled 21.18 million, or 125.8 per cent of the inhabitants. These figures suggest a inhabitants of greater than 16.8 million, which is greater than official estimates.