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Published on April 25, 2008

Usanee Mongkolporn

The Nation

New acting president Varut Suvakorn yesterday said TOT had 4 million fixed-line telephone numbers but 1 million had not yet been subscribed.

He has asked the agency's staff to report the number of unsubscribed telephone numbers and idle data-communications circuits in their areas of responsibility, so that TOT's management can ask private companies to step in to market them.

One possibility is that the unsubscribed numbers will be used to provide public phone services, Varut said.

The move is aimed at boosting TOT's monthly revenue 2-5 per cent, but Varut declined to reveal current monthly revenue figures.

Over the past two weeks, members of TOT's union have protested against the resignation plans of the agency's former acting president Kittipong Tameyapradit. The union wants the board to convince Kittipong to remain in the post. However, the board instead appointed Varut as the new acting president.

Varut said he would push for Cabinet approval of TOT's plan to install a Bt6-billion broadband-Internet protocol network. The network is expected to generate annual revenue of Bt1 billion for the agency.