As a Freelance Web Designer, all of my work, projects and clients are online and that means that I also need to be online at least 12 to 16 hours everyday. Not being able to do so means lost of business, lost of clients, lost of projects and ultimately lost of income. A couple of [...]
As a Freelance Web Designer, all of my work, projects and clients are online and that means that I also need to be online at least 12 to 16 hours everyday. Not being able to do so means lost of business, lost of clients, lost of projects and ultimately lost of income. A couple of weeks ago, Digitel, my internet service provider or ISP, experienced a major problem with one of their line which according to one of their staff was around Balagtas Boulevard. This caused an interruption of their service in the immediate area where the problem happened and, unfortunately, we were in that immediate area.
What the exact problem was? I don’t exactly know. Contacting them was very difficult because the phone was also dead, not just the internet service. We have to either contact their Hotline using a Digitel phone in the next barangay or visit their office at Colago Avenue. Calling their local business office would just be a waste of time since they were not answering any calls. I should know because we called many times.
We went to their business office four times, I think, and the staff their could not tell us when the service will be restored. All they can tell us was that their people were already working on fixing the problem. A couple of weeks later, their internet and phone services in our area were still DEAD.
A couple of weeks! That’s a couple of weeks of me not making any money. No internet access means no income for me and my family. While they are sitting pretty getting paid, we, on the other hand, were borrowing money from loan sharks and pawning items to pawnshops just to get some money for food. My online income isn’t big. It’s just enough to pay for food, bills and rent. Heck, I don’t even make money from this website! Digitel was literally killing us by not restoring their service ASAP.
At first, I had faith that the problem would only take a few days so I waited but days became a week and a week became a couple of weeks. We were already DEAD broke! My eldest son, who is in High School, had to go to school without any allowance money and there was nothing I can do. All of my work are online and without internet access, I can’t do any of them. I’m pretty sure that some, if not all, of my current clients are already fuming about not getting any updates. I was able to send a couple of e-mails from an internet cafe but I just can’t work there. There is no privacy and it’s not the most secure place to access the internet besides it will cost too much, not to mention the fact that I already had no more money.
On our last visit to Digitel’s business office, they told us that service will be back on the 22nd of March, 2010. Guess what? March 22, 2010 passed and, still, both their internet and phone services in the affected area were still DEAD. The sad part about it is that they told us that Brgy. Concepcion lost service two weeks ahead of us. OMG! That’s like a month without service. Are they saying that we should just shut-up, stop complaining and wait like what those in Brgy. Conception are doing? Arrggghhhh, I don’t think that I can muster enough patience to wait that long anymore.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010, my wife was able to talk to a Globe Lineman. They were installing wireless internet access not too far from our home. She inquired about it and she went home with an application form. After talking about it, we decided to scrap Digitel, because we just can not wait any longer, and go with Globe’s Wireless Internet Service. We were able to submit our application the next day and we were told to wait 3 to 4 days up to a week at most.
A week of waiting isn’t bad for a new application specially when we were still waiting for Digitel to fix their DEAD service in our area. If we had known earlier that Digitel wouldn’t be able to fix their problem in less than a week then we would have applied with Globe earlier. Globe’s Wireless Internet Service cost PHP 995.00 a month and the internet speed you’ll get is 1mbps.
Tags: digitel, globe, globe wireless internet service, internet, wireless
About The Author
Romelo Itong is a Freelance Web and Graphics Designer from the Philippines. When he is not designing new websites for his clients, you will find him blogging about various topics, issues and events. (Follow on Twitter | Friend on Facebook)
