Spokesman Wuttipong Piebjriyawat said a meeting of the state agency's board decided yesterday on the plan to become the national telecom operator, operating on a non-profit-centric basis and focusing on providing services to benefit the public.

He declined to say whether TOT still planned to list on the Stock Exchange of Thailand and issue an initial public offering of shares, adding that the organisation's new strategy has to be completed first.

"TOT intends to finish working out its new strategy within next month," he said.

The state agency has been planning to list on the stock exchange for many years, but has failed to do so through lack of strong government support.

Wuttipong said the new direction aimed to "rub out" TOT's past image - that the agency is a place where outsiders can come in to reap benefits.

"Some people have amassed their fortune by taking advantage of us in the past," he said.

TOT's board set up a screening committee yesterday to assess projects submitted for the agency's consideration.

Part of the new direction will be to focus on improving its network procurement process, which will see TOT making decisions on technology trends and commercial viability. In the past, its decisions were based on the suggestions of network vendors.

The same committee will also devise measures to improve TOT's internal operations, he said.

Pending the completion of its new strategy, TOT's board has delayed the approval of network-related projects "in the pipeline".

The state agency plans also to create another committee to handle its legal disputes with private telecom concessionaires, Wuttipong said.

TOT has been in dispute with several of its own concessionaires as well as those of CAT Telecom.

TOT's president Somkual Buraminhentr said the state agency had agreed to comply with the Central Administrative Court's order to connect its fixed-telephone subscribers with those using 1.5 million additional mobile phone numbers of True Move. The connections will be completed within 10 days.

Originally, TOT refused to integrate 1.5 million additional phone numbers of each of True Move and Total Access Communication (DTAC) into its network. It said its action was the consequence of the two operators, both of which are concessionaires of CAT Telecom, refusing to pay its access charges.

On January 19, the Central Administrative Court ordered TOT to make the connections. However, TOT made the connections only for DTAC's new numbers, but not for those of True Move, and the latter went back to the court.

The court summoned TOT to clarify the matter, resulting in its compliance with the order.

The heart of the dispute - TOT's access charge - is levied against CAT Telecom's cellular concessionaires for connecting to different networks via TOT's facilities. But DTAC and True Move have made it clear that they want to pay only the interconnection charge introduced by the National Telecommunications Commission, and not the access charges.

The interconnection charge regime requires all telecom operators to share voice and data revenue between the networks involved in calls on the basis of bilateral agreements between the cellular operators.

Usanee Mongkolporn

The Nation