By Graham K. Rogers

In an English language press release dated 13 January, DTAC has announced that customers who were affected by an incident on 8 January this year will be compensated with a 48-hour waiver of service from 12 noon 7 January to 12 noon 9 January this year. The company confirmed that it had set aside some 40 million baht for this.

The press release details the cause of the incident, which occurred as a result of a car accident in Pranburi, followed a short while later by a brush fire which burnt a power pole and the backup fiber-optic cable. The combined effects cut the service in the southern region and affected some 1.8 million customers. DTAC reports the time of the service cut as being 2.5 hours.

With two earlier incidents on 21 December and 5 January which affected subscribers in large areas of Bangkok for which they set aside 350 million, DTAC claims that the company has paid a "total compensation of Baht 400 million (sic)."

CEO Jon Eddy Abdullah expressed his understanding of difficulties that customers had faced with the service disruption. The company thought that despite the unforeseen nature of the incidents, a waiver on local services was the best path for both post- and pre-paid customers for both voice and data transmissions.

The CEO ended with, "We realize that customer trust and satisfaction are the most important aspects of our business. The waiver of service charge is just a part of our customer focus efforts. More importantly, we strive to offer products and services that best meet customer needs. Therefore, we are committed to work hard to retain customer satisfaction and regain customer trust."

Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs.