Fibre fibre on the wall, who is the most connected of all?

What can I say, today I finally got a fibre connection. It has taken 18months but today it happened. They came and finally connected the fibre up. You really don’t want to see the pictures of the cabling outside the house! I will post those as a separate video later. Anyway today I got my connection. Not at the speed I paid for, but hey, 8mb is a good start. Apparently the 16mb will come later when they switch me over fully… It took two weeks, which is probably pretty good since I have been trying for 18months. But there were some interesting fiascos in there. My cable looks good inside the house but when it gets outside it looks decidedly gnarly. Suffice to say it circumnavigates the house attaching to the walls in a precarious manner, then disappears across the neighbours property only to turn up in an alley, then descend into an open conduit in the sandy ground, all exposed to the elements and local fauna… I don’t think it will last the distance, but then will I? At least it is going! For the moment. Wish me luck.

Frustrating my-optic nerve...

Call me stupid. I went to Etisalat again.  I took down my 18 month old complaint to ask them to follow up on it (and try to get the outstanding amount taken off my account). But first I dropped in on sales to see what the status of fibre optic cable was. The last time I applied, some 6 months ago, I got told I could have fibre and they booked a technician to come. Unfortunately he went to Khalifa City A, instead of Abu Dhabi. And consequently my application got cancelled. They wouldn’t reinstate my application unless I visited in person, even though it was their mistake. The landline phone number the application was registered against was clearly in Abu Dhabi and different from my time in Khalifa. I love the way a phone company can’t handle business competently over the phone. 

Anyway since I was at the Etisalat HO I went to the surveyor and got him to check my location, and yes, it was still listing me with an incorrect address. He updated my record and assured me I could have fibre. He wrote various cryptic numbers on the bottom of an application form and sent me off to sales. At the sales desk I was told that there was no problem with getting the connection and he convinced me to go for a faster speed which would cost about the same as I was paying for DSL at the moment. So I signed up on Monday for a 16mb fibre optic connection wondering just how long it would take this time.  Next, I went upstairs to the customer service department to ask about my outstanding issue. There I was told that it was so old that they couldn’t look at it in the system but he took a photocopy of my complaint form and promised to pass it on to his supervisor in the morning. 6 dirham in parking fees (two hours premium) and I was on my way home with the promise of action on two fronts.

To my astonishment I was called at 4pm the next day to see if a technician could come to install my fibre connection that afternoon. I asked how long it would take and was told it would only take about an hour. I was very suspicious at that point as it seemed impossible to do everything in such a time but arranged for them to come at 5:30 and hastily arranged for my wife to take no.2 daughter down to her drum lesson (a taxi service I usually fulfil). The crew turned up pretty much on time (to my surprise) but did need quite a bit of phone coaching to find the actual house. When they arrived they spend about five minutes wandering around asking where the box was. To which I responded that they were here to put in the cable and the box. No, they replied they were just going to configure the “box”. I pointed out to them that someone needed to dig a trench and lay some fibre before they could do that and that they’d better get started. No, no that is a different crew. They would put in a report and another crew would come. If they hadn’t come in a couple of days I should call 101. And off they went. Useless.

Again to my surprise, the next day (Wednesday) I got a call to say that the next team was ready to come and could they do so at 3pm.  I checked that my wife would be home after picking up kids from school and agreed.  This next lot turned up and wanted to know from my wife where the ‘box’ was. She called me just as I was starting a class and I could only briefly relay to her that they were to install the box themselves, that was why they were there, to lay cable and install the fibre terminal.  Now apparently they spent a little time then went away and came back with another crew who told my wife that she could have the “box” today if she paid 1,100aed. She called me and I told her categorically that we did not have to pay. The technicians left without doing anything. My class finished at 5 and I drove straight to Etisalat. 3 aed premium parking. I got the same customer service agent that I’d talked with two days previously. I asked him first why I hadn’t been called back by his supervisor over that case. No answer to that. I then told him that we had been asked to pay for our installation. He was apologetic and said he’d heard of others being asked to pay 500 and that his supervisor had been able to sort it out. He said that they were independent contractors and he would get to the bottom of it and I would be called back by his supervisor – yeah right, like the last time I thought.

Thursday arrives and of course I don’t get called back by said supervisor, so I call 101. I relay the whole sad story and get a sympathetic hearing and a claim of shock that we had been asked for money. However, he said all I could do was wait for the technical team to now act on the installation. I pointed out that I was worried that now that I had not paid that I would get subjected to extra delays by the contractor. I also pointed out that in actual fact I have been waiting for 18 months for the fibre installation, as that was the source of my issue from originally moving into the location. Back then they had tried to cancel my DSL connection transfer because they were expecting to put in fibre but I insisted that I needed the DSL until the fibre actually arrived, and that since a DSL connection was already live in the house it should just be assigned to me.

So here we are again, time is marching on. So far I have had to be in contact with Etisalat everyday of this week. I have effectively wasted 2 hours per day dealing with them.  I think I might need to start charging them my daily rate plus transport and parking fees. Certainly this time around I am going to keep a closer note of the actual progress.

No end of problems

I had confirmation from the Etisalat sales representative in HO that my area was not subject to Fibre and that the existing, working DSL connection in my new house would be utilised. At the time I had enquired whether I should buy a wireless modem to cover me for delays since Etisalat is notorious for slow internet connectivity but I was advised that the connection would only take a couple of days.

It was obviously my mistake for believing anything that anyone at Etisalat says!

Without telling me, my connection transfer was cancelled because of a fibre plan. I only found out that it was cancelled when I complained about the delay. All that time the DSL circuit was working except I could not Logon to it. Ridiculously I was told I would have to go back to the office and reapply to try to get on the DSL! Eventually, a further week later after pestering the help desk twice a day I was given access to the account.  Well, it started letting the router log in anyway. But two weeks later it was cut off!  When I called technical support I had to wait two days for a technician to look at the job only to find out the that technician then went to Khalifa City A instead of Abu Dhabi. It took a further week of complaints to get it restarted. It was a problem with the wiring on the street although at first the technician tried to pass it off as a problem with the modem cable, which it patently wasn't.
 Returning from a trip between Xmas and  New Year I found the DSL was cut off yet again! I am not sure how long it had been off since we were away. Of course I was straight on the phone to customer support. I waited around the house for 2 days to let the technician inside. But nobody came. When I complained again  at the end of the mandatory two working days period, I was told the problem had been fixed and closed! No one had contacted me, no one had visited, and the DSL was still not working!  Then when I spoke to the customer service that afternoon I was told that the technicians only work until 3pm! How ridiculous! I called three times that afternoon, demanding to talk to the complaints department to complain about the customer service.

Eventually the next morning two technicians arrived, checked the modem and cable again, and then fixed a problem on the street. I would not let them leave until I could confirm that I have a working connection.

Next I tried to get compensation for all the downtime. Of course there has to be a hitch with that too... They only take such requests by fax - that old antiquated technology which of course I don't have! Email and phone are not acceptable. Of course I could visit head office - I was told helpfully. Grrrrrr.

Gut Instinct

Okay, I relented. My family was concerned about not having internet. I was considering the campaign of the usb modem for wireless broadband. That option was about to run out.  I tried to call the Madinat Zayed outlet that I had been to, to see if they actually had any of the units and the status of my application. Got no reply. So I ventured over to the headoffice.  Things seemed to go reasonably well. I found a car park a short walk away. The surveyor looked at the site map I had and seemed to be able to determine the location to his satisfaction. The queue for the transfer was not too long and I was soon being dealt with. It was confirmed that I couldn’t keep the number but I got offered a pretty good one as an alternative. He was also convinced that it should only take 3~4 day and therefore I didn’t need to put the services on hold and go for the wireless alternative. My area was not in the process of upgrading to fibre optic cable and that meant there should be no delays.   So I have to confess that Etisalat HO had worked out contrary to my expectations. But what was my reason for not wanting to go there? I found that out again quickly when a returned to my car to find that someone had smashed the wing mirror off. Bing, I didn’t want to go near the place because of the parking!!! The repair of this is another story in itself but it only needs to be noted here that it cost just on 1,000drh.  I would have been better off getting the usb modem from an outlet, it would have been cheaper… Lesson, next time stick to gut instincts.

The not-so online services.

Time to take on the behemoth. With an impending move, I am now faced with the transfer of my landline and internet services. Oh no, this means dealing with Etisalat. First off, they tell me I can’t transfer my existing landline number so I’ll have to get a new one. That is a shame as not only is it a good number it is also only really used by family in New Zealand and Japan so changing it is rather inconvenient. Secondly, I can’t organise the transfer over the phone or online. I have to visit one of their offices. So once I get a site plan of the house location I ventured into Madinet Zayed mall to an Etisalat outlet to do the business. I refuse to go to the head office as there is never any parking and always interminable delays there. However, the outlet refuses to take my forms saying they are not allowed to process them since two weeks ago. What do they do all day if they don’t process applications I wonder? They tell me I have to go to the main office. I tell them that I refuse to go there and that if they can’t do it then they had better just cancel both services. I don’t really need the landline and there are other ways of getting the internet. Ah, but they can’t cancel either, I have to go to the main office! I complain, and bully them, and they relinquish, and take the paper work. Probably a mistake as they may just throw it away… How would I know?

Talking to some colleagues I find that one who has just moved is still without internet services 3 weeks later and I begin to wonder how long this process might take for me. Actually I can probably make do with my work connectivity but the girls are on the internet for homework and social networking a lot. They will suffer the most. Unfortunately I sold my mobile broadband router some time ago. I began to think maybe I should go back on one of those wireless units to cover the outage. Actually Etisalat is just at the end of a campaign that would give me a month’s free connection for the price of the usb modem 499drh, and the option of cancelling or downgrading at the end of that month. If I didn’t have to pay for my landline and broadband for the month it wouldn’t be such a steep price.

It is always good to shop around so I thought I’d check out the competition – Du. Du have a usb modem for 399drh with a half price rate for 6 months. That sounds goods but it doesn’t say if it includes the first month (half of 360 = 180). Probably would have to pay that ½ rate for the first month which takes it up to 579. Thought I’d better check that out. My daughter has a Du phone so I hopped on that and called 155 to check the details. Three times I called and waited over 10 minutes each time and still failed to get through to someone! That doesn’t bode well for getting assistance with setting up notoriously flaky modems. Maybe I won’t be switching to Du for my internet. I fired off a complaint to their website about their lousy phone service for good measure.

Okay, that means back to Etisalat, so I got on the phone to 101 to find out what the deal is with getting the services put on hold for a month while waiting for the transfer to take place. Well what do you know, can’t do that without going into the office. I politely informed them that they were a phone and internet company, why then could they not offer these services electronically like the rest of the world. I suggested that he make a note of my request and past it to a supervisor. They always say that the calls may be monitored for quality service and training reasons so I figure you might as well give them something to listen in on! So next I called 101 again to talk to the broadband services, would they put the service on hold? Well, yes, but again I would have to go to the office to do so, and there would be a 60drh fee! This customer service representative also got a lecture about how a telco should be providing services online…