Telephones, well at least landlines, are a bit of a dying technology here. Everyone has a mobile, usually two and sometimes more. There is a cultural thing going on with private vs sanctioned numbers that is not for me to investigate or comment on, but apparently there are about double the number of cellphones as there are people in UAE (source - rumour, I'll need to look that one up sometime). Anyway I have a landline for my mother to call because she is a Luddite and doesn't use a mobile let alone call one... I'd like to switch over to the new packages they offer with internet and phone integrated into fibre, which is about 1/2 the cost of my current combination, but despite my troubles almost a year ago with them planning to put me on cable and delaying my internet connection, fibre has still not been deployed! Didn't Etisalat say they had the whole of Abu Dhabi on fibre by the end on 2009!!!
Well two weeks ago my landline stopped working, actually it became intermittent, sometimes no dial tone, sometimes just a loud crackling noise and sometimes it would work. Which means it is basically useless. To register a fault you phone 101 and put in the landline number and wait. To find out the status of a fault you follow the same procedure but when you get to the end of the automated procedure you are told that the fault has already be logged for that number. After a day or two you can do it again because they obviously think they have fixed it, but nobody tells you that. I soon got the hang of calling an operator number and bypassing this system to complain, basic tack being I want a refund for the lost days. Eventually I get a call from a technician to ask if I'm home so he can come to the house and fix it. No, I'm at work. When can I be home, around 4pm. Oh no we finish at 3pm. Well come in the morning around 7. Oh now we start at 7. Well I start at 7 too and I work to 4, can I have your job? This is a telephone company that is supposed to provide service 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. You can't have the technical staff operating only when everyone is at work! Anyway we negotiated that he would come on the Saturday. So I waited at home all day Saturday and of course they didn't turn up. I called and complained to 101. Hopeless. Two days later I get a call at 2:30pm can they come to the house to fix the phone. Why didn't you come of Saturday - no answer. I call my wife and find out she is home from picking up kids from school so yes they can come. I arrive home just after 4pm and there is an Etisalat van still there. 3 men are sweating around the cable entry into the house doing unspeakable things to the wires. They explain they have had to put in a new cable, can I check the phone now. Actually the phone is still not working so they go back to it. 15 minutes later, can I check the phone again, great it is working, but suspicious as I am, I ask is my internet still working - NO! Back to work boys.
Now at this point I walk out round the back to see the new cable which has been draped over the neighbour's fence and is running loose alone the side of the house. But just at the wall is a bird's nest of wires. This is their join. This is state of the art Abu Dhabi official Etisalat wiring. When I complained to them about the state of this they said it is copper wiring so "it's okay in the rain" but they did upgrade it to their weather proof version!
Mind you they only taped up one cable, not the other cable they had also mutilated...
It took them another hour and half to work out which two wires where my internet ones that they had cut off. I eventually let them leave at 6:30pm (my revenge for them not working 24/7)
I have experienced nearly every level of Etisalat from complaints, accounts, applications, head office, branch office, telephone support, and technicians and I can honestly say I have not one good thing to say about the experience. Looking at the complaints' pages in the letters to the editor of Gulf News I can see my experiences are not isolated. This is one company that should shrivel up and self destruct. BTW I still have an outstanding billing complaint that has not been dealt with after 11 months. Ahh, things work slowly around here.
Well two weeks ago my landline stopped working, actually it became intermittent, sometimes no dial tone, sometimes just a loud crackling noise and sometimes it would work. Which means it is basically useless. To register a fault you phone 101 and put in the landline number and wait. To find out the status of a fault you follow the same procedure but when you get to the end of the automated procedure you are told that the fault has already be logged for that number. After a day or two you can do it again because they obviously think they have fixed it, but nobody tells you that. I soon got the hang of calling an operator number and bypassing this system to complain, basic tack being I want a refund for the lost days. Eventually I get a call from a technician to ask if I'm home so he can come to the house and fix it. No, I'm at work. When can I be home, around 4pm. Oh no we finish at 3pm. Well come in the morning around 7. Oh now we start at 7. Well I start at 7 too and I work to 4, can I have your job? This is a telephone company that is supposed to provide service 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. You can't have the technical staff operating only when everyone is at work! Anyway we negotiated that he would come on the Saturday. So I waited at home all day Saturday and of course they didn't turn up. I called and complained to 101. Hopeless. Two days later I get a call at 2:30pm can they come to the house to fix the phone. Why didn't you come of Saturday - no answer. I call my wife and find out she is home from picking up kids from school so yes they can come. I arrive home just after 4pm and there is an Etisalat van still there. 3 men are sweating around the cable entry into the house doing unspeakable things to the wires. They explain they have had to put in a new cable, can I check the phone now. Actually the phone is still not working so they go back to it. 15 minutes later, can I check the phone again, great it is working, but suspicious as I am, I ask is my internet still working - NO! Back to work boys.
Mind you they only taped up one cable, not the other cable they had also mutilated...It took them another hour and half to work out which two wires where my internet ones that they had cut off. I eventually let them leave at 6:30pm (my revenge for them not working 24/7)
I have experienced nearly every level of Etisalat from complaints, accounts, applications, head office, branch office, telephone support, and technicians and I can honestly say I have not one good thing to say about the experience. Looking at the complaints' pages in the letters to the editor of Gulf News I can see my experiences are not isolated. This is one company that should shrivel up and self destruct. BTW I still have an outstanding billing complaint that has not been dealt with after 11 months. Ahh, things work slowly around here.
