In an incident that surely says something about Thailand’s broader telecommunications infrastructure, Pol Colonel Sanpisit Yaemkesorn has announced that Thailand’s 191 emergency service has been underperforming thanks to problems with its telephone operator.
Sanpisit claims that the problems began five months ago, when the 191 unit moved to a new office. Since then, the group has encountered problems such as an inability to record emergency calls and an inability to record the phone numbers of emergency callers.
Even more worrying is the fact that the 191 unit is currently working with only six operational phone lines, meaning many emergency calls are being met with a busy signal.
This does not bode well for 191’s future. The Nation reports that last year, the service left more than a half-million calls unanswered, a number sure to rise thanks to this lackluster telecommunications infrastructure.
