Protesters march to an anti-government rally site in Bangkok, Thailand. Rufus Cox/Getty Images
The anti-government protests that have been occupying the streets of Bangkok, Thailand since November 2013 have begun to breach the boundaries of the tech world. Thailand’s National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) reported that users are defecting in droves from the AIS telecom company — one of three that support the connectivity of the entire country.
VISUAL CONTEXT: THAILAND’S MOBILE BROWSING
Source: EKNOWWAYTIONS
Tech in Asia‘s translation of the NBTC’s report on the sudden boycott of AIS describes a defection of 1,400 users last Friday. The boycott is part of a larger effort on the part of opponents of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to eschew business of any company linked to her family — particularly her brother, former P.M. Thaksin Shinawatra who was ousted in 2006 under accusations of massive corruption. It is public knowledge that Thaksin founded AIS, and despite its attempts to convince users that the Shinawatra family has sold all of its stake in the telco, the company experienced double the usual number of users switching out of its service, most of them signing up with Dtac.
This mass defection comes at a particularly injurious time for AIS as Thailand is beginning to advance in the mobile sphere, and is steadily building out more advanced communication networks. Dtac and True Move — the country’s third carrier — are expected to launch 4G base stations throughout Bangkok in the next few months, with more base stations planned for other regions throughout the rest of this year. If users continue to unsubscribe from AIS in protest, the telco’s existence as a major player in the communications sphere could be threatened, particularly as its competitors launch enticing high-speed networks.
While it does seem unlikely that the telecom industry of Thailand would have emerged from this political conflict unscathed — Thaksin Shinawatra having been a telecom tycoon and all — it is hard to predict how the landscape of communications carriers will change as a result of the country’s political distress. Of course, it will take many more defections than 1,400 to permanently damage AIS’s business, but there is no end in sight for the protests and business boycotting. At the time of this writing, Yingluck Shinawatra has refused to resign, and the military has declared it has no plans to intervene, leaving the protests stalemated.
