Third World telecom
I am currently on dial-up until I can pick up one of those Smart Bro mobile thingy. Too bad that my Macbook Pro can’t use a dial-up service so I am using Speedy’s laptop with its Windows OS. Too bad too that my iPhone cannot be used as a modem. Apple isn’t really Third World friendly, is it?
PLDT DSL service sucks, really. REALLY. It should be thankful though for all the publicity I am generating for its terrible service. Below is the full text of yesterday’s column.
On Wednesday morning, my PLDT DSL connection went dead. Service was restored on Thursday evening but died again on Friday. Service in Antipolo, Binangonan, Morong and Taytay has been dead since Wednesday.
As usual, customer service did not know what was going on except that there was a massive network problem. What was being done, the status of the repairs and how long service restoration would take was beyond them.
I really hate customer service, you know? The call center industry is built on a culture of lies. We have call centers servicing customers in other countries thousands of miles away and call center agents pretend to be surnamed Carter or something, and obliged to speak with such ridiculous fake twang, so that American customers will think they are talking to someone in the building of the company whose service they are complaining about.
A reader, a Filipino in the United States, tells a story about complaining about his phone service last winter. The customer service representative told him to go and check the box outside his house. Amazed, he asked if the customer service representative knew how high the snow was in the area. She didn’t—she was in Quezon City.
How efficient can outsourcing be in such situation? It’s the same thing with local companies with outsourced customer service. How can call center agents explain anything when they do not understand the telecom business for instance?
It was Monday morning when I finished writing this column. It is Monday afternoon and I am retyping it on my iPhone so I can e-mail it to my editor. I love my iPhone but it’s no fun typing an 800-plus word document on a touch pad the size of a credit card.
Truth is, I am so damn tired of the apologies from customer service. I am even more tired that apart from promising to make the usual report ticket, customer service does not offer much help. Ironic that a company engaged in communication can only manage to communicate one way. That’s PLDT for you.
But most of all, I am dead tired of having to call PLDT’s billing department to have them note that I am not going to pay for broadband service for the days when there was none. PLDT knows very well what areas were affected and who the subscribers in those areas are. Why do subscribers need to call individually to object to being billed for days when DSL was dead through no fault of ours? Is it really SOP to take advantage of us unless we complain? If their service was 50 percent better, I would be encouraged to pay the bills more promptly. But as it is…
Such sucky service. Yet, with the ads that proliferate on tv, newspapers and every street light in Metro Manila, you’d think these telecom companies offer superior service. There is an ad where a businesswoman is on the beach then goes to her computer to check with her manager in Manila. Video conferencing and all, the message being conveyed is that you can stay connected anywhere you are.
Very funny. I am just a few kilometers outside imperial Manila and I’m having all these problems. I wonder how connection would be if I were lounging on some remote beach with virgin forests beyond it.
Consider Baguio. First-class tourist destination. The Department of Tourism markets Baguio globally. Guess what? Until a year or so ago, only big hotels had DSL service on corporate accounts. There was just dial up for residences. Very progressive, eh?
Funny that it took PLDT less time to restore service following the Taiwan earthquake over a year ago than it is taking to fix the current problem in Rizal. Why? Because imperial Manila was affected then; it isn’t now.
On times like these, I wonder whether those in the communication industry are serious about connecting the country with the rest of the world. Maybe its just lip service. Broadband providers advertise as though they all want us to avail ourselves of their service. But once we’ve signed up, they can’t deliver.
Choice can be such an elusive thing. And a luxury for us who do not live in Metro Manila. There’s just sucky PLDT DSL here or, if you’re lucky, Smart Bro where hills and trees do not obstruct the line of sight. We in the suburbs get treated by telecoms as though we were too backward to have any real use for broadband Internet.
If it’s any consolation, Digitel is going to be the third broadband provider in our area. Will it live up to its promises or will it be just like PLDT? You’ll know because I will be writing about it.
A third of what’s been written about me is true, a third is half-true and the rest consists of drug-induced hallucinations. I suppose I’d better let me, rather than them, tell you 
22 responses to "Third World telecom"
“First world telecom”, in the US at least, is a few years behind ours. That is why the early-gen iPhones are not even 3G. It’s sad but only the geeks know any better.
“Why do subscribers need to call individually to object to being billed for days when DSL was dead through no fault of ours? ”
Exactly! Some time ago, our phone went dead for over a week due to stolen cables. I thought PLDT would automatically deduct from our bill the number of days when we had no service. NOT! I found out (quite belatedly) from a friend (who incidentally lives in your area) that you have to call PLDT and request for this. Unbelievable!
NICELY PUT, CONNIE. 3rd-world services nga talaga ang mga natatanggap natin dito sa bansa natin. Puro porma, kulang naman sa substantial performance. We pay for services that are NOT working the way they were promised to work. And we have to deal with those crappy call center agents na halos wala namang pinagkaiba sa mga tamad na government workers (kung may tinamaan, my apologies. Hindi ko naman nilalahat).
We used to subscribe to PLDT and yes, their services really SUCK. And we live in Quezon City, and mind you not in a remote part of QC but very near [Araneta Center] Cubao.
And in addition to being slow when it comes to restoring their services, they are also far from being customer friendly. First, as you already pointed out, one has to report about loss of service just so service-less days could get deducted from the bill. Based on our experience though, we had to report it more than once, and I think my father even went to their office as it seemed that they would not bill us properly when he just called them. Also, they are not very helpful when a customer asks about what he/she can do if the problem seems to be an isolated case. We subscribe to a different service provider now and their customer service really is helpful (my friend says this other service provider is ok, too). And geez it takes PLDT forever to send their people to check the area when we report that their service went dead.
BTW, I’m not sure if Smart Bro is ok either. My friends who use it complain all the time.
No other journalist would talk about this issue because:
1) they have free PLDT DSL
2) those who refused to get one are warned by the management not to talk about it because PLDT is a very big advertiser
Fortunately, I have yet to encounter the same problems that you are suffering from. I know how frustrating everything is and I may lose my hair , well what’s left of it, pulling it off just to let go of steam boiling in my head.
dito sa Gubat Digitel din pero sa town proper lang. bulok din daw ang service. yung smart bro di ba sabi sa ad broadband ng bayan, abot ka kahit saan? hindi ako abot ano eh along the highway naman ako at wala sa bundok. 5 kilometers from the town proper where there is smart bro, hindi pa rin ako abot. outside of the perimeter na daw ako. i use a 3G cellphone to connect online. dapat 3G pero GPRs lang and ubra dahil remote nga ang location ko. daig ko pa ang may metro ngayon 10 pesos for 30 mins ng Smart. ang lines ng digitel 2 kilometers na lang di pa maka-abot sa akin. hayyy…
I’m on MyDestiny cable internet. And though, yes, sometimes it sucks, at least it’s just sometimes. Most of the time, I’m able to enjoy good speeds (faster than DSL). I wonder why MyDestiny doesn’t expand to cover more areas.
Digitel blows. Slow connections, and weird billing. They try to sneak fees on you without notice. I speak of course from experience, as my shop in san mateo only had access to digitel dsl.
I’ve been suffering for over three weeks with faltering connection, I use zpdee and have had to call them nearly every night to report on the lack of connection or intermittent connection. They’ve replaced cables, modems and still the problem persists. During the heavy rains last week, I wouldn’t have connection an hour before the rain up to an hour after the rain stopped. It was like they were timing it! Am now changing ISP so I can forego wasting my phone time and laway trying to make their customer service agents understand what I need. I’ve probably been branded the customer from hell by now.
another possible reason why pldt is not at all service friendly most of the time is because they know that in almost all areas they are present and the other providers are not, leaving you no choice. sucks big time noh? i was gonna ask you connie to why not just switch to sky dsl (bayantel) or globe but i think you mentioned before that these aren’t available in your area yet. so a shout out to other dsl providers, eto na pagkakataon nyo!!!
about smart bro, i also heard a comment that it’s not that reliable.
i can’t say the same though for pldt weroam. i’ve been using it for the past 2 yrs and it has served its purpose, at least sending out emails, surfing the net, and uploading photos. mabagal na nga lang pag videos na ang ina-upload.
chateau,
Aye with MyDestiny. They had bad days last month, but at least things got better in later parts of the day.
Speaking of which, the iPhone will officially be brought to the Philippines via Globe later this year, I wonder how its third world performance will fare.
seen this post on pinoydsl.net
im a pldt dsl subsriber…
taena tlga pldt
Re. #6 is your shop in San Mateo, CA.?
Re #5. Yes, I KNOW YOU, and I know that you KNOW what you’re talking about. Doesn’t it feel good NOT to be a part of the corruption? hehehe I love it that I can tell PLDT to eat my dust because I am a paying customer. And I love my editors because they don’t tell me what I can and cannot write about.
I’m a Smart Bro DSL subscriber. I guess bad service really runs in the family (Smart & PLDT). For the past 2 weeks I experienced several instances of losing my internet connection. I tutor online in the evenings and my classes would stop midway everytime my connection gets cut off. Contacting the *1888 number on my mobile phone is such a harrowing experience - the wait is very long and usually the line to the customer service rep just keeps ringing. When I got thru finally, the tech person did the usual check. In the end, I was told that my antenna was misaligned. I was given a problem code and was told to expect a call from the technical group within 24 hours. I had class the next day so I couldn’t rely on that statement “a call within 24 hours” to mean that my internet service would be back by the time I needed to go online. I went to a nearby hotel to use their wifi connection do my classes. When I got home, still no connection (more than 24 hours had passed). The next day I was told (I made another call to their *1888 number) that they already made a system adjustment. It has been a merry-go-round story since then. Smart knew that the problem was antenna misalignment and yet no one was dispatched to actually check my antenna and repair it on site. Is Smart running out of field people to do the leg work? I’m still treading on “egg shell” connection. Next week, I’ll be transferring to BayanDSL, for P100 less monthly, I get faster minimum speed (784 Kbps vs. Smart Bro’s 364 Kbps) and hopefully a better customer service for tech problems.
Cathee, PLDT have “contractors” now instead of genuine technical and maintenance crews. Everything is outsourced, hence, the slow response. Terrible, terrible.
it’s not only PLDT who uses “contractors”.. we use DIGITEL ADSL in our bulacan fty and pareho lang na nakaka-irita ang service nila as PLDT.. the DIGITEL tech crew “contractors” they sent for repair were not even in proper uniform (they came wearing shorts and slippers.. mukhang gusgusin), they didnt even have official ID’s (only showed the job order), their van was a run-down owner jeep.. so who in their right mind would let them in to the fty? they even came on a sunday! buti na lang our caretaker did not to let them in… when i checked with the branch office, they confirmed that those were their “contractors”.. well, nakatikim tuloy sila ng sermon on the concept of sub-contracting… akala siguro nila kapag sub-contracting,bahala na ang contractor…..
Chris and Eilyn: ah ok, so never mind Digitel. I was happy pa naman na at last I have an alternative.
As per my pamangkin dyan sa pinas, Smart Broadband is not good. It connects and disconnects every 5 mins? They have to move the satellite dish from time to time. Just a friendly review.
as far as i’m concerned all of them sucks! I have an internet cafe, i’ve tried PLDT mabagal at laging DC, then DIGITEL slow din at totoo weird magbilling that i always have to call every now and then and even go to their office to check why my bill is beyond my dues, at konting umulan naDDc din and now Globe broadband, bago lang ang coverage dito sa SPC laguna. Heck, much (2X) faster than DIGITEL lagi namang disconnected. Lahat magaganda ang Ad at maboboka ang agent! but sadly not quality service…. kelan kaya maaayos and we’ll be finally given the quality service that they supposedly promised!
couldn’t have said it better!!!
i only had my smartbro connected 2 months ago and not a week has passed that my connection didn’t timed out nor was disconnected for reasons yet unknown to me(cause most of the agents wasn’t able to help me at all).besides i have worked for a telco company in the us and in canada and we offer rebates for customers bills when they have an outage in their areas and wont be able to use the service,which is only just.
bottomline is,since smart is related to pldt,i’m not surprised they both suck in their products and services,BIG TIME!!!
and they’re prehistoric when it comes to speed:384 kbps,i dont even reach that much speed when i’m downloading.they should be ashamed of themselves for they kept on bragging on their ads that they’re connection is 7 times faster than dial-up,yeah right!?i saw from a speedtest site that the japanese has the fastest download speed,a whopping 13kbps downstream and Sony Entertainment is the fastest provider in the world! I wonder if our Local providers here would even wonder that aside from connection speed also matters………well we’re living in the philippines and we shouldn’t expect too much from them. =[
Leave a comment