"These goals can be achieved if employees and top management join hands," Sathit announced while outlining the state agency's business direction to employees yesterday amid reports of the board's decision last week to sack TOT president Teerawit Charuwat.

He said that last year, TOT made Bt58 billion, down from Bt61 billion in 2004.

He asked staff for a joint improvement in the performance of TOT's flagship business, fixed telephone-line service, which he expected to generate around Bt42 billion in revenues this year.

Out of total revenues forecast, Bt48 billion is expected to be from its own businesses and the remainder from concession fees.

Revenues from "newly developed" businesses like broadband Internet and international calls are projected to increase 210 per cent over last year. Traditional sectors like traditional fixed-line services will increase 5 per cent.

Revenues from broadband Internet and international calls are expected to surge 448 per cent and 26 per cent, respectively.

TOT has around 3 million fixed-line subscribers and more than 200,000 broadband-Internet subscribers nationwide.

Revenues from fixed-line and public-telephone services are expected to grow 0.79 per cent and 18 per cent, respectively, from last year.

Sathit said the board had tried its best to protect TOT interests in its dispute with one of its private telecom concessionaires.

TOT recently lost an arbitration ruling to True Corp Plc in a court battle over a network-access dispute. The state agency will appeal to the Central Administrative Court, in a bid to override the ruling.

Sathit said the TOT's real competitors were foreign strategic partners of local telecom operators, such as Singapore Telecom (SingTel) and Norway's Telenor.

SingTel and Telenor are strategic partners of Thailand's major cellular operators Advanced Info Service Plc and Total Access Communication, respectively.

Usanee Mongkolporn

The Nation