The new chairman of TOT, General Saprang Kalayanamitr, said he would seek "justice" for the state agency, which has "lost advantage" in the past.

Speaking at his first board meeting yesterday, Saprang said that in the past it seemed there was someone inside TOT opening the gate for outsiders to take advantage.

He added that he would bring back what TOT had lost.

Saprang hand-picked the 14 other directors.

To prove his words, the board yesterday appointed two committees, one to examine all TOT concession contracts to see whether there was any damage caused to the state agency, and the other to "solve TOT's internal problems" and improve its operational efficiency.

The first committee is chaired by TOT board director Weerapol Panabutr, the second by another director, Vutipong Piebjariyawat.

Board director Chavalit Sethameteekul said that the first committee was expected to finish examining the concessions in the next three months.

Recently the Information and Communications Technology Ministry submitted all private

telecom concession contracts of TOT and CAT Telecom to be examined by the Council of State to see if they complied with relevant laws.

Chavalit said that the first committee was also assigned to handle the dispute over access and interconnection charges between TOT and the CAT's private cellular operators.

The access charge is the cost all of CAT's private cellular concessionaires - Total Access Communica-tion, True Move, and Digital Phone - have paid to TOT for connecting different networks via TOT's networks.

But DTAC and True Move want to pay only the interconnection charge under the regime of the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC), instead of both interconnection and access charges.

The interconnection charge requires all telecom operators who have already signed the bilateral interconnection deals to share voice and data revenue with each other.

TOT has been earning Bt14 billion a year in access charges.

Telecom Reporters

The Nation