Ill wind blows no good

       Morakot was no Emerald; it was an ill wind that whipped up seas and cut or damaged six separated fibre-optic cables carrying Internet traffic to Thailand; the typhoon itself never hit Thailand, but while it killed an estimated 500 Taiwanese,Morakot caused deep-sea landslides that severed three cables and disrupted three others, including the SWM-3 (Southeast Asia - Middle East - Western Europe 3)and both APCN (Asia Pacific Cable Network) that carry Internet and telephone traffic to and from Thailand; the Net slowed noticeably, but picked up after a couple of days when engineers managed to quickly repair the APCN2 cable between Singapore and Malaysia, while traffic was re-routed to other systems.
       The top three yuppiephone networks announced a convoluted "solution" to SMS spam, now estimated at nine million annoyances a day; starting next Monday, if you get an unwanted commercial message on your mobile phone,call your network's anti-spam centre,explained what happened, and they will try to block any other calls from the spammer - the AIS number to call is 1175,DTAC is 1678 and True Move is1331, and the theory is that the 30-million-baht software they have installed and the highly trained staff they have hired will combine to block the spam across all three networks; Thana Thienachariya, chief commercial officer at DTAC, said blocking spam would cut revenue at all three yuppiephone firms, who have profited by selling SMS time in blocks to advertisers; in other words, he already knows where the calls are coming from.
       Bangkok telephone provider True Corp and their yuppiephone subsidiary True Move began advertising "revolutionary" international phone rates of "only" three baht a minute to mostcalled countries; the rate, cheap at half the price, is about half what the telecoms duopoly of your TOT and your Cattelecom charge, but about twice the cost of the most popular long-distance specialists like DeeDial and ZayHi ; the True rates only will last until New Year's Eve.
       If corporate diversification is a sign that the recession is ending, then we got good news from Delta Electronics (Thailand); president Henry Shieh said the Taiwan-based electronics firm is about to acquire solar-power equipment makers in the US and Europe to get out of traditional electric sources and into larger technology areas; he bragged that,"Our cash on hand of over 8 billion baht also supports our investments,"and while Thailand plants are running at only 65 percent capacity making fans and converters, profits in the second quarter were still a healthy 301 million baht.
       Also upbeat: CEO Watchai Vilailuck ofSamart Corp , who said business was looking up, with revenues increasing by 17 percent year on year in the second quarter to 4.44 billion baht; although profit remained stagnant at just under 125 million, Mr Watchai said he sees clear economic skies ahead, and expects to introduce 20 new yuppiephone handsets before New Year's Eve to feed what he is certain is growing demand in Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Bangladesh and Cambodia, as well as Thailand.
       Not everyone was bragging and sunny; No 1 yuppiephone firm Advanced Info Service of Shingapore announced major changes at the very top of the firm's food chain to try to adjust to negative growth and increased competition; AIS tried to spin the changes as restructuring, but in fact the major changes were personnel; Singaporean Hui Weng Cheong was promoted from deputy president to the newly created position of chief operating officer, where he will take over marketing, customer management and handset distribution;president Wichian Mektrakarn was moved to CEO and the president's position was dissolved; AIS has recently realistically changed its revenue target from 4 percent growth to minus-3 percent, bizarrely blaming oil prices and the flu pandemic; chairman Somprasong Boonyachai said you should be ashamed of yourself for thinking the changes at the top were because of poor operating results, it's just all part of a careful,long-planned succession plan.
       The company formerly known as Shin Satellite insisted it will break out of its habit of losses and break even this year,thanks to higher bandwidth sales from its iPSTAR broadband satellite; it's not all rosy for Thaicom , however; Tanadit Charoenchan, executive president of vice, revealed that,"We expect iPSTAR's bandwidth usage to reach 15 percent this year, up from 10 percent currently."
       Then there is Grammy Entertainment , which reported no harm, no foul in its first-half results, a profit of 314.2 million baht on slightly increased revenue of 3.95 billion, boosted almost exclusively by TV programming, while music sales fell four per cent.
       Finally, consider the case of bank employee Nawanit Noichana,; he posted a message on the Sanook.com forums soliciting readers to have sex with a certain Ms Som, and providing her real phone number; it was all a prank or something worse, because Ms Som was certainly not that kind of woman; the Criminal Court judge found him guilty under the Computer Crime Act, but then sentenced him to just 12 hours of community service and a one-year suspended imprisonment.