Sunday, January 31, 2010

Broadband Connectivity

About a year ago, I was walking around Wisma Merdeka during lunch break when I was attracted by the WIMAX Redtone promotion at the ground floor atrium space. People could try out the connection speed themselves on a laptop provided by the promoters. On one of those laptops, there was an online movie showing. I thought it was pretty impressive.

I had an account with Streamyx for over 2 years by then. But streamyx is slower than WIMAX. Perhaps it's because too many people are logged on all the time, thus causing congestion. As the result, it's not always possible to watch online movies or video clips such as youtube. It would lag so badly that it can be so frustrating. In fact, this recently Streamyx has been sending out their own promotion to ask us customers to "upgrade" for a faster speed for a small increase in the monthly charges. So as you can imagine, there is a bit of slowing down on the speed. I suspect that they're trying to give a good reason for us to "upgrade", you see.

Anyway, coming back to the WIMAX thing, I was seriously thinking of dumping Streamyx because of the above reason. But in the end I decided not to, because I thought it's just a matter of time before WIMAX too would become congested. Furthermore, WIMAX is charging substantially more than Streamyx. I decided to wait till later to see what's the feedback from those who subscribe to WIMAX.

At around the same time, Mia bought a new laptop so that she could bring her work home. The old laptop her company gave her was really old. But since she's bringing her work home, she needed internet connection. Actually, we could share the existing Streamyx that I have via a router. That would probably cost us a small amount on some hardware, but at no extra cost to the internet provider.

But little did I know when I came home one day, there was this ugly rounded thing beside Mia's laptop—apparently a receiver for her new WIMAX account. She had subscribed to WIMAX without even asking me first. So now we each have our own service provider, she with her WIMAX, and I with my Streamyx.

During the first few weeks of her WIMAX connection, it performed wonderfully. But after while, it, too, became subject to occasional no service problems. That is not a surprise to me, because to be quite honest, I had expected it. She had contemplated dumping WIMAX and then sign up with Streamyx. But I told her that both services are basically the same in terms of performances. Besides, I think there's a kind of condition the she's supposed to maintain her account for at least 2 years. Or is it longer?

As it turned out, the connectivity and speed aren't really the main problem after all. Each month Mia would receive at least 10 calls from the Redtone folks in KL, asking her to pay her bills. Mia would tell them that she had made payment to their KK branch. And for some strange reason, these people have no communication whatsoever between their KK and KL offices. They have no record whatsoever who has made payment and who hasn't. So they have to keep calling their customers all the time to keep track on billings.

It has now come to the point of annoyance. Mia is making sure that she's paying her bills on time each month. Yet they're calling up all the time and implying that services will be terminated if no payment is made. As I said, they have no idea who has paid. So now Mia has decided to wait for them to cut off the line and then she's won't do anything about it. She will simply give her business to Streamyx.

But I gave Mia an even better idea. If indeed she's discontinuing with WIMAX, I will get a router so that we can just share the existing account I have with Streamyx.

Those of you who're entertaining the idea of subscribing WIMAX Redtone, I'd suggest that you think again. They will be chasing for payments all the time even if you've been making payments promptly each month.


3 comments:

mimpi said...

just be careful..some servive providers may cut ur line (due to outstanding bill) and yet still billing you with the next monthly fee until you officially terminate the service/contract.

Cornelius said...

Ah! mimpi, you have a point there. Yeah, the best is that once they disconnect, might as well end the service officially. I think there will be some expenses incurred for terminating the contract of service before 2 years. But well, what to do, I guess we'll just pay those extra expenses. But that's the last they're ever gonna make any more money from us!

mimpi said...

i just terminate my "C" broadband after the account was suspended by the telco due to late payment. i just ignore them since the service is very bad!to my surprise t still have to pay for the months (3months) that lapsed although i was not able to enjoy the servive due to suspension!another free money for them i guess!