Product & Services

Since December 2020, several COVID-19 outbreaks have flared up within migrant communities. The Central Shrimp Market of Samut Sakhon was the first epicenter, triggering a full lockdown of the region. dtac, as the leading mobile operator among foreign workers, sensed this would pose connectivity and everyday life challenges to affected customers in the region. dtac responded with Cambodian and Burmese-language health advisories, care packages and special top-ups to ensure foreign workers could stay connected affordably. To better understand the situation on the ground, dtacblog sat down with Lalida Lohachitanond, head of the migrant segment team and two of its members from Myanmar, Aung Aung Htut and Aye Nanda Soe. First Responders “When the outbreak emerged in Samut Sakhon in late December, we realized our customers were suffering deeply from its impact,” said Ms. Lalida. “Our first response was providing official health advisories translated into Burmese and Cambodian through our online communities on Facebook.” Currently, dtac Myanmar’s Facebook page has around 1.8 million followers, while dtac Cambodia has approximately 200,000 followers. Apart from acting as a bridge to necessary information, dtac Myanmar and dtac Cambodia also provided useful tips for daily life during the lockdown. “When the lockdown was imposed, migrant…

dtac has partnered with Asefa to jointly develop Smart Monitoring and Service Care for Main Distribution Boards (MDB). The cooperation between ASEFA and dtac makes power monitoring more accessible, ensuring uninterrupted power for its users. “You’ve experienced blackouts before. Without power, the temperature quickly rises in homes and offices, computers go dark—you might even get trapped in a lift. When blackouts strike the industrial sector, imagine how much damage they cause. Such scenarios underline the importance of power distribution. It affects all activities in our lives. Power distribution systems must therefore be efficient, safe and stable,” said Phaiboon Angkanakornkul, Managing Director of Asefa Plc. The newly developed solution with dtac features real-time monitoring with simple-to-understand readouts to monitor temperature and humidity. Moreover, the solution can also forecast power demand, display real-time power consumption monitoring and also increase power efficiency. Power: The Key for Digital Transformation Asefa makes main distribution electric switch boards, automatic control system, power management systems, along with after-sales and related engineering services. These are used in industrial plants and medium to large buildings with high power demand needs. The Main Distribution Boards (MDBs) take power from the transformers and channel them to smaller boards. Just like how…

Every day the 34-year-old Tew-Weerayuth Puthawong rises at dawn to get ready before the first customers arrive. Many stop by on their way to work to top-up their mobile phones at his shop in a small village in Phan, a district of Thailand’s Chiang Rai province. And although Mr. Weerayuth serves his customers on a wheelchair, he never lets physical limitations prevent him from connecting his customers to what matters most.When the country was hit by the COVID-19 outbreak, resulting in a city lockdown, data usage grew five times faster in the provinces and residential areas than in central Bangkok. Many people who moved back to their hometown have chosen to remain there as the economic downturn continues. This has made mobile refills in small villages a critical service. “Many people came home during COVID and never went back or tried to find a job in town. Some people run their own business or help their parents on farming and raising livestock. And not everyone has internet at home, so they came looking for prepaid data sims at my shop,” Mr. Weerayuth explained. Several years ago, Mr. Weerayuth, an online gamer, decided to reach out to the dtac sales team…

Thailand’s Northern capital of Chiang Mai is famous for its laidback, slow-life charms. Fittingly, lively green bicycle docking stations branded Anywheel began popping up in the hip Nimman neighborhood and the old town. They belong to a Singaporean startup which seeks to reduce the growing car usage that threatens to ruin Chiang Mai’s quality of life. As the city now faces major challenges of traffic congestion and air quality, luring locals back to bikes is a daunting challenge for a startup of its size. To find out more, we travelled to Chiang Mai to meet Seet Rui Jie, the 29-year-old general manager of Anywheel Singapore, and understand how Chiang Mai can be reborn into a greener, smarter city. The green service Anywheel was founded by its current CEO, the entrepreneur Htay Aung. The company has been offering bike share services for more than three years in Singapore, Malaysia, and most recently in Thailand. Its goal is to provide a fun, affordable, and environmentally-friendly transport alternative. To do this, Anywheel works with both public and private entities to install bike docking stations, equipped with bikes that are durable and easy-to-use.“We want people to be able to get to different parts of…

This is a guest post from Rajiv Bawa, Chief Business Officer at dtac. After months of lockdown, casual face-to-face interactions are back. Meeting with clients in a more relaxed setting has allowed me to hear how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected them and how they’re fighting back. We dubbed these interactions “Delight Moments,” as they allowed us to show our empathy for the difficulties businesses are enduring right now. They’ve all had to pivot and reinvent themselves in different ways. But one common theme is that their view of mobile connectivity is forever changed. The lockdown triggered the realization that organizations can keep on functioning despite their people working from home. The amount of mobility may vary for each industry, but everyone now believes that being flexible and mobile is a critical need that isn’t going away. And they see a need for new tools to do this well. For some industries, such as logistics, machine to machine communications can bring much needed efficiencies to cope with the surge in e-Commerce. And we are also seeing a heightened need for secured networks outside of the office. That being said, basic mobile connectivity remains the top requirement for all our partners.…

At the end of January, there was a rumor on the social media that a COVID-19-infected Chinese tourist was receiving treatment at Rajathanee Hospital, the largest private hospital in Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya province. The fake news was spreading fear and panic among many locals and the hospital’s patients. “Once the rumor spread, we received calls and texts from our doctors, medical staff, and patients non-stop. We had to use every communication channel to inform the public the right information, from the patient LINE group, text messages, to our Facebook page. If we didn’t immediately communicate, it would have caused great damage to the hospital. Efficient communication tools helped us through the crisis,” said Surin Prasithirun, M.D., Chief Executive Officer of Rajathanee Hospital.  Rajathanee Hospital was founded in 1992 by a team of doctors from the Faculty of Medicine Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University as they saw a lack of basic health services in the area, where many factories and industrial estates are located. It is the first private hospital in the province and is today well-known for specialized medical centers, from orthopedic center, minimal invasive surgery center, oncology clinic, cardiology center, to accident and emergency center. The hospital also plans to…

It has been more than two months after the spread of the novel coronavirus entered to Thailand, resulting in the government’s lockdown and social distancing measures. Restaurants and street food stalls are among those who got affected economically. We have seen a lot of business adaptation to survive. But one thing that still remains in their hearts is delivering happiness through food. dtac, as a member of the Samyan neighborhood’s community, is fulfilling our mission to connect people to what matters most by featuring the area’s most delicious foodie spots in the series #SaveStreetFood throughout May. And the last episode goes to the legendary Chinese shophouse restaurant, Hokkee Pochana. What makes this 40-year old-fashion eatery become famous is the aromatic five spice goose or Haan Phalo. Malida Mongkholchaiwiwat, the owner of Hokkee Pochana, told dtac blog: “The restaurant is founded by my dad, Hong-Ieng Sae-Low. His job is a chef in Chinese restaurant in Shan Tou City, a coastal city along South China sea. When he sought migration to Thailand in 18th century, he brought his Chinese culinary skills to survive in Thailand as a fish maw soup hawker. A few years later, he found a good location to operate…