Union head Nukul Baworn-sirinukul said yesterday he had asked the Information and Communica-tions Technology Ministry to convince Montree to reconsider his move.

Highly capable and decisive, Montree suits the job and can help steer TOT against the competition from private telecoms, he said.

Nukul mentioned General Saprang Kalayanamitr, assistant secretary of the Council for National Security and also chairman of Airports of Thailand, as a possible replacement for Montree.

ICT Minister Sitthichai Pookai-yaudom said he would ask the prime minister to pick a new TOT chairman soon.

Montree and five other directors resigned from TOT's board last week when the Central Administrative Court ruled that TOT must accept new phone numbers from Total Access Communication (DTAC) into its system or consumers will be affected.

The ruling came after DTAC's request for the injunction from the court over its network access dispute with TOT.

The dispute began recently when TOT refused to integrate 1.5 million new phone numbers from DTAC and True Move into its network, citing their refusal to pay its access charges.

TOT's intransigence means calls from TOT's phone subscribers will not reach the new users of DTAC and True Move.

A telecom needs all other operators to integrate its new numbers into their switching systems so that the numbers can be recognised by other networks. This week TOT started connecting its subscribers with DTAC's new phone numbers as per the court ruling.