Ais Admits To Billing Glitch

AIS admits to billing glitch

BANGKOK: -- Thailand's largest cell-phone operator, Advanced Info Service (AIS), said yesterday that its billing and customer care systems would be operational next month after a glitch during a product launch in February that required the shutting down of some systems.

The complete billing system will be up and running again by next month, AIS executive vice president Arpattra Sringkarringkul said.

"AIS began upgrading its systems in January to cater to more customers and finished the process in February," she said.

"But during the re-launch of services in February, AIS found that the *911 interactive voice response system, part of the whole billing system, had a glitch and that part had to be shut down for repair."

The *911 allows post-paid customers to call in to check the cost of a call.

During the service shutdown, AIS post-paid customers could not contact the system by dialling *911 to get an update on their bill, Arpattra said.

Customers complained that their bills were higher than usual because they could not call the *911 to obtain a current balance, she said.

Some customers said they would file complaints with the Consumer Protection Board, saying AIS was at fault by causing them to make more calls than average as they were unable to monitor their bill's progress.

"We did not mean it to be like this," said Arpatta.

AIS has two million post-paid customers out of a total of 14 million users.

Meanwhile, AIS signed a Bt1.2 billion contract with Germany's Siemens to purchase the Enhanced Data Rates for GSM Evolution (Edge) and General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) high-speed data transmission systems, Arpatta said.

The new networks from Siemens will raise AIS's GPRS network capacity from the current 600,000 subscribers to approximately 2.4 million.

Delivery and installation work is scheduled for completion by the end of July, she said.

--The Nation 2004-04-30