AIS cancels EPL app registrations

Advanced Info Service has temporarily closed new registrations for its “AIS Mobile Barclays Premier League” application while it increases its servers’ capacity to prevent another crash. It expects to reopen the registration system this week.

The company also announced it was waiving the Bt199 fee for the first month for all customers who registered for its BPL Live package between August 14 and 17. Pre-paid (One-2-Call) customers will get their money back.

Users who have already subscribed can still watch the matches.

Pratthana Leelapanang, senior vice president for digital service, said that because of the huge numbers of users accessing AIS’s server at the same time on Saturday night, it was overloaded and crashed. The company apologised to users who could not access the service.

So far more than 200,000 people have registered for the app, included downloading the AIS Mobile BPL app on iOS and Android smart phones and accessing the mobile portal with feature phones. But AIS’s server only had the capacity to support between 100,000 and 200,000 concurrent users.

“There were a lot more than what we had estimated when we prepared our servers, so the system crashed,” Pratthana said.

He said the app was popular because the package is affordable, at only Bt199 per month if users register by September 30. There is a lot of demand for watching the soccer matches of the BPL, better known as the English Premier League. As well, this app is very convenient for users – they can carry the matches with them. “I think some people registered for the AIS Mobile BPL app because of the delay of CTH’s implementation. But I do not think people registered for our app because they did not want to subscribe CTH’s service,” said Pratthana.

CTH has the television broadcast rights in Thailand for live EPL matches.

He insisted that CTH is AIS’s partner in the launch of the mobile app. The two companies have different groups of target users. Those of AIS Mobile BPL app are people who want to get in touch with the Premier League while on the move.

He said the server crash was AIS’s problem and had nothing to do with CTH. He also insisted that AIS and CTH maintained a close relationship. 

However, he added that AIS really aimed to have a lot of users apply for this app, since in Thailand there are several million fans of top English soccer league.

“With this affordable price, we believe a lot of people will subscribe to the service. Our system will be ready to serve huge numbers of users at the same time,” he promised.

Meanwhile, TrueVisions has won the rights to broadcast live coverage of the Thailand Premier League 2014-15 season.