Open Letter To The Tt&t

[raro]

Dear Sir,

I would like to address some concerns regarding your service. I take the time doing this because it took me those days one year to get a telephone line and I am somewhat stuck with your company lacking alternatives. I also want to avoid a “from the frying pan into the fire” experience.

In the last three weeks, I had on five days no internet connection.

On September 5 there was no ADSL signal. As your engineers do no work on weekends, I had to wait until the following Tuesday for the problem to be fixed. My maid let the engineer in as I was at the office when he arrived – despite my request to call me a bit in advance to arrange a meeting. Coming home to check the result, I found your engineer happily surfing the web. From my browser history on September 9 between 12:35 and 12:55:

http://15461212.qq.sanook.com/

http://qq.sanook.com/user/user_personal.php?fuin=15461212

http://app.sanook.com/click/?v=b607ba543ad...8507ee86c54fcb7

http://qq.sanook.com/user/user_personal.ph...461212/my_3.jpg

http://entertain.teenee.com/thaistar/25590.html

http://entertain.teenee.com/thaistar/25664.html

file:///D:/Program%20Files/Zeallsoft/Super%20Screen%20Capture/Web/ourproducts.htm

http://www.teenee.com/

http://teenee.com/

http://entertain.teenee.com/thaistar/25554.html

http://entertain.teenee.com/thaistar/25554.html

http://entertain.teenee.com/thaistar/25376.html

http://entertain.teenee.com/thaistar/24539.html

http://kapook.com/

http://hilight.kapook.com/view/28645

http://hilight.kapook.com/view/28595

http://play.kapook.com/vdo/show-55407

http://play.kapook.com/vdo/%E0%B8%84%E0%B8...%B8%A7%E0%B8%A2

http://play.kapook.com/vdo/show-8376

http://play.kapook.com/vdo/show-29155

http://www.adslthailand.com/

http://www.adslthailand.com/index2.php

http://www.adslthailand.com/bandwidthmeter/initialmeter.php

http://speedtest.adslthailand.com/

I do not mention this to get the guy sanctioned, but rather to illustrate the work attitude of your staff which is most possibly resulting from poor management. Moreover those 20 minutes waiting time wasted the time of both, your engineer and your customers next in queue.

In all fairness I must mention that he upgraded me from 1 Mbit to 2 Mbit. If he was not authorized to do so, please change it back as the difference is despite the nominal speed increase only marginal.

Yesterday, on September 27, TT&T had a complete server meltdown and there was no internet nationwide for couple of hours.

Today no ADSL signal again and again no engineer available.

I learned from your call center:

· TT&T pays low salaries to the engineers. For that reason TT&T has difficulties to recruit qualified staff as other industries pay higher wages. The solution here is too obvious to mention.

· Engineers work office hours. As a result, your customers are left alone if problems occur on weekends or in the evening. Moreover, I for one (and possibly other customers as well) am not at home when your engineer eventually finds the time to show up as it is during my working hours.

As I have addressed my concerns to your call center numerous times but never received any feedback except for “Sorry to keep you waiting” and “we apologize for our service” I am looking now for a reply from your management with an action plan how to tackle the numerous hick-ups in your service. A public statement would be preferred as this mail is on purpose cc to all newspapers I could think of and posted on www.thaivisa.com as well as www.cannotmentionitinhere.com for public discussion.

Again, I am stuck with your service, otherwise I would just change the provider without a second thought.

[Guest Reimar]

raro, I would suggest that you contact the Consumer Protection Office at NTC (National Telecommunication Comission) which is handles complaints like yours.

Maybe you contact Khun Saksith Sasibutra who was handle the Consumer Protection Office.

Cheers.

[raro]

that sounds like a good advise...do you have a contact number? I would need that also for my complaints with TOT...an absolute pain to handle!

[moo9]

With all respect, I think we have been all through similar experiences....(especially frustrating was the IPStar.!).

As there are no alternatives (neither ToT, True, Cat, IPStar) you have to accept what you get.

Most Thais frequent only the popular Thai websites, they not care too much about international bandwith and they mostly never experiences how a properly managed Service Provider works.

I gave up to complain. I pay 500 Bht/month for 2MB Line (almost never get that speed, at least internationally). Staying rather long time now in LoS, I just accept it as it is. Being without the internet would be much worse.

Certainly one could complain to the Consumer Protection at NTC, but do you think they really care?

TiT

Cheers

[Sakeopete]

Get used to it, they just don't care TBH and in many areas they have a monopoly so why waste money giving good service. I remember my wife calling UBC when we had a problem for days, she threatened to cancel the subscription and the service desk lady said OK I don't care and hung up. Many of the large Thai companies only exsist because of concessions that give them monopolies. My Maxnet is crap in Aranyaprathet but its better that IPSTAR was so I have no choice. My True internet in Bangkok is great wish they would start up outside the capital.

[sniffdog]

Don't blame the technician ... he was just testing a few Thai sites to confirm that you got the speed promised ....

If I were you, sue them .....

[raro]

A story form the past with Hutch:

After I spoke to the Vice President Shops in Bangkok face to face all my three problems were solved within days and a idiosyncratic "company policy" was removed. The shop manager in Pattaya greated me upon my next visit with thank you so much for getting rid of this policy...

The lesson learned is....don't mess with call centers and shop managers. The root of the problem is in the BKK headoffice. The challenge is to get any contact number in there. Once I have it, I will post it here with the name o the Manager in charge.

I'm on a mission....

[LivinLOS]

As there are no alternatives (neither ToT, True, Cat, IPStar) you have to accept what you get.

TT&T maxnet premier.. Solid stable line and 2Mbit real measured speed internationally about 80% of the time.

[niller74]

Calling TT&T service center is a joke unless you speak Thai.

For English press 9

...and they they start speaking Thai.....

No wonder they cannot make the Internet work they they cant even figure out to configure a voice recorder.

[raro]

Dear TT&T,

Coming home last night I see that the ADSL signal works again, however, upon logging in I get error 769 “the specified destination is not reachable”.

I call 1033

The lady at the call center promises me a call back from the technician within 10 minutes.

After 30 minutes I call again. The lady at the call center promises me a call back within 20 minutes. I don’t want to wait and ask her to transfer me to the technician. She hangs up the phone.

I call again, have another lady on the phone. She promises me a call back from a technician “very soon” but I ask her to transfer me to the technician. She hangs up the phone.

I call again, this time a guy answers. I explain him that I will not discuss my problem with him for the fourth time today but want to talk to a technician only. He transfers to another guy who claims to be a technician. As he doesn’t seem to be able to tell a modem from a router, I ask him if he is sure to be a technician and he admits that he is just another call center staff. He eventually transfers me to a technician after I pressure him hard to do so.

The technician (a lady) asks me to enter user name and password again and I am connected.

This raises four questions:

1) Why does your call center staff hangs up the line twice when I ask to get transferred to a technician?

2) Why does your call center staff pretends to be a technician when they are not.

3) As the solution was rather easy, why does it require a technician to solve the problem? Giving your call center staff a manual with error codes and possible workarounds would have saved about an hour of my time yesterday.

4) Why does error 769 can be solved by re-entering user name and password? From what I understand it means that my computer cannot reach your server. Wrong user name and/or password should rather produce error 691. Again, the technician could not give me an explanation to this question.

Further I still wonder why this had to be entered again as my computer usually remembers the settings.

I asked the technician how to contact the technicians directly as for future problems this would save my time. Her answer was to call 1033. As this does not answer my question I asked again how to contact the technicians directly. Her answer was again call 1033. After asking her about 10 times the same question she told me that it is not possible because of company policies.

I asked her who makes those policies as I would like to discuss the usefulness of this policy with this person. She did not know where this comes from and could not explain me why this policy is in place.

We learn that your staff is enforcing policies that they do not understand by themselves.

In addition to what we had yesterday, there is another day without internet as I had to wait for more than an hour at your hotline to get an easy solution.

I would like to ask TT&T to come forward with an idea as to how to compensate me for my time wasted with your call center and the non-availability of a service I have to pay for.

An answer to the above from your Management would be highly appreciated.

This mail is again cc to the press, cc to Mr. #### of the consumer Protection board and posted on www.thaivisa.com and www.awellknownsiteinpattaya.com

With best regards

[OlRedEyes]

Though I agree that the service can be lousy, and the level of knowledge superficial at best, it is unrealistic to expect them to hand out technicians' tel numbers. This would result in chaos.

The answer is better trained call center staff. Which would result in higher salaries demanded. Which would result in higher prices being asked for what is in effect still a bargain service, taking into account that the infrastructure is not first-world. The demand in Thailand for real broadband speeds is not high enough, most Thai use the internet for local services, and only at low intensity.

So the demand for high-end infrastructure is not there, and if the demand is too low, supplying that high-end infrastructure will be too costly for the consumer to use. Catch 22.

I have been using Thailand's various ISP's for 5 years now, and though I may curse and fume at times, it is still a pretty good service at a very reasonable price for what is in effect still a 3rd world country (IMHO).

[raro]

I agree with you that the old adage of peanuts and monkeys applies.

I also agree that 600 Baht per month is dirt cheap and asking 6 x 20 Baht back for no service would be quite pathetic. Having said that, I did this once with TOT and since I am always on top of their queue once I call them for a problem. The amount I cut those days from their invoice was 210 Baht.

I for one would be happy to pay more for the internet if I could get a reliable service. Unfortunately I can pay only more for higher speed which I don't really need. Most of my (business related) internet activities are e-mailing and some browsing which does not require lightning fast connections. But an available connection.

[dominique355]

I suggest we send the same or a similar letter to the other ISPs here.

True is just about as lousy:

- when it starts raining the Internet brakes down

- Saturday and Sunday snail speed (around 7 kb/s)

- Internet connection gets lost about 10 times per day

- when there is an incoming phone call, the Internet connection breaks down

- Call Center is a joke. Despite several attempts I do not understand it when they speak English and they simply hang up

- I have (at least on my invoice) a 2.5 Mb/s connection, maximum download speed ever has been 75 kb/s

The sad truth is that they don't care. Thailand is a country which has not yet understood the importance of communication. Remember the last IT Minister? He had never heard of E-Mail before.

[lucky2103]

Though I agree that the service can be lousy, and the level of knowledge superficial at best, it is unrealistic to expect them to hand out technicians' tel numbers. This would result in chaos.

Not true.

After calling call centre of true corp., the technician appeared within 2 hours time and left his mobile number without being asked to do so. This happened twice already (different technician).

However, its the same old song: They sell bandwidth they actually dont have. I lease a 2500 kbps line, but most of the time I merely get 500-800 kbps.

[raro]

Though I agree that the service can be lousy, and the level of knowledge superficial at best, it is unrealistic to expect them to hand out technicians' tel numbers. This would result in chaos.

Not true.

After calling call centre of true corp., the technician appeared within 2 hours time and left his mobile number without being asked to do so. This happened twice already (different technician).

However, its the same old song: They sell bandwidth they actually dont have. I lease a 2500 kbps line, but most of the time I merely get 500-800 kbps.

The bandwidth is another issue...I for one would be happy to have internet at all....

[raro]

Today, from about midday onwards, again no ADSL signal.

That is the 7^th day within four weeks with internet problems. Your call centre gave me the number of the Khao Noi office and the lady there organized within 2 hours an engineer to fix the problem – this can be considered a good response time!

However, I would like to know how this problem arose in the first place and what TT&T will do to prevent it from happening again.

A reply from your management would be highly appreciated.

Up to now I have not received any reaction whatsoever to my mails to your [email protected] address and start to wonder whether anybody is reading this mailbox at all.