to all existing backbone telecommunications networks under a new strategy to act as a "genuine" national telecom company. The new strategy was expected to increase political and business tensions. Under the "build-transfer-operate" (BTO) concession agreements that TOT signed with private telecom operators, the TOT technically owns all fixed-line, mobile, and optical fibre networks in Thailand. However, it had never exercised those rights in the past. Vuthiphong was fired from the TOT board and his position of acting TOT President in June 2007. He immediately accused the Army of using the TOT as an unmonitored slush fund. He claimed that an unnamed Army unit had requested that TOT buy it 800 million baht worth of electronic equipment. Upon receiving the request, Vuthipong demanded to know why neither the Army nor the Defence Ministry used their own secret budgets to purchase the equipment, and why an internal Army unit, rather than the kingdom's main national security organisations, had made the request. Saprang denied that there was any lack of transparency in the request for financial support. Vuthipong claimed that the equipment should only have cost 30 million baht, not 800 million baht. He was fired and expelled from the board soon after refusing to sign off on the deal. The board later appointed Col. Natee Sukolrat as the new TOT President and accepted the army's donation request. Under his leadership, TOT's performance dropped. Revenues for the first half of 2007 fell 13 percent year-on-year, while net profit fell 36.1 percent. Fixed line revenue dropped 16 percent, and public telephone and international call revenue by 30 percent each. As Chairman of CAT Telecom, Saprang was accused by the founders of PTV, a new satellite television station, of being behind CAT Telecom's refusal to grant an internet link from Bangkok to a satellite up-link station in Hong Kong. PTV was established by several ex-executives of the Thai Rak Thai party. CAT Telecom claimed that it never received PTV's application for internet access. Under Saprang's leadership, 80,000 subscribers of Thai Mobile, a TOT/CAT joint venture mobile phone operator, were cut off temporarily in early-May 2007 when owners TOT and CAT Telecom failed to pay bills to a major supplier. Thai Mobile had accumulated significant losses and the company was not able to make its debt payments or supplier payments. The partners had stopped payments to the supplier, Samart Corporation, for nearly a year, until Samart