BANGKOK, Aug 28 – DTAC, Thailand’s second largest mobile operator, was bombarded with complaints Tuesday when its network was down – its second service disruption in less than a year.
The network went off the air late this morning due to a failure in DTAC’s switching system in suburban Rangsit.
Service at the DTAC call centre was suspended, while DTAC’s Facebook was bombarded with complaints from furious mobile users.
Thakorn Tantasith, secretary general of the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC), said an urgent letter was immediately delivered to DTAC seeking an explanation.
NBTC will set up a committee to discuss the fine DTAC must pay which, according to Mr Thakorn, could be up to eight figures, and the company must also provide compensation to 130 million customers as it did last December, when a similar incident occurred.
A preliminary survey found that the 3G network was completely down while the 2G network suffered partial disruption.
NBTC earlier warned DTAC against another network failure. The Telecommunications Act B.E. 2544 (2001) imposes a daily fine of Bt20,000.
Later in the day, DTAC (Total Access Communication Plc) issued a press release saying an MPLS signalling router at its switching centre in Rangsit failed to operate, affecting about 20 per cent of DTAC users in various areas for a total of 65 minutes, between 11.06am and 11.26am and from 12.00 noon until 12.45pm.
