The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) has summoned Advanced Info Service (AIS) to meet today to explain the downing of its mobile and fixed internet broadband services which lasted for a few hours yesterday morning and its planned compensation.
According to the telecom regulator, telecom licensees must provide continuity of their network connectivity and the operators must maintain quality of communication signals to ensure standardised level of telecom services and consumers' benefits.
Complaints flooded social media around 7.30am on Monday that AIS mobile and home broadband services could not be accessed.
The complaints lasted for a few hours until AIS issued a statement at 10.45am in order to apologise for the disruption of services in some areas and point out that normal services had resumed by that point in time.
Trairat Viriyasirikul, acting secretary-general of the NBTC, said the regulator was aware of the glitch in the network of AIS's mobile service subsidiary Advanced Wireless Network (AWN), which occurred between 7.30am and 8.30am and affected customers in some areas.
The NBTC office then instructed AIS to urgently recover its network connectivity in the affected areas as well as provide proper compensation to impacted users, Mr Trairat said.
AIS and AWN were then summoned to provide an explanation about the problem at NBTC's office today.
"The NBTC office reiterated all the operators must effectively maintain signal quality in line with the standard level required under the regulations," said Mr Trairat.
"If network disruptions occur, the operators must urgently find ways to recover the network for normal usage and give the affected users compensation," Mr Trairat added.
NBTC deputy secretary-general Sutisak Tantayotin said AIS initially reported that the problem was caused by a power supply incident in network modes in Eastern Bangkok.
Meanwhile, AIS chief executive Somchai Lertsutiwong said the glitch was caused by problems with the power distribution system and uninterruptible power supply, which caused disruption for around two hours.
Some two million subscribers were affected by the incident.
AIS has offered compensation for affected customers of 10-gigabytes of free mobile internet and 200 minutes of free phone calls over the course of 24 hours. Unlimited mobile package users will be eligible for a waiver of one day of service fees.
Home broadband users will be eligible for a one-day service fee waiver.
SMS messages will be sent to affected customers regarding such compensation, AIS said.