Telecom Oligopoly 4, Smart bro's inefficient service

Friday, 6am.

I bought a Smart bro prepaid pocket wifi in late December 2015. Earlier it was good. Then about 3 week ago, April, I experienced service interruption despite having a load. I reported it to their Ayala office, the lady asked several questions, I answered them, then said something like I reached the data cap because I used frequently some data-heavy sites like youtube, fb, etc. Then said that the service will resume after about 12 hours. The problem was indeed solved that time when I reloaded my pocket wifi number.

Then two days ago, Wednesday, I  experienced the same problem, first at around 1pm, which I managed to solve after several frustrating attempts at logging in, failure, success, failure, etc. Then around 11:30pm, the problem re-appeared. After tinkering with the settings like what I did earlier that  day, for about 30 minutes, nothing happened. It looks like this.

But when I visit any website, the IP address would re-appear and ask for a login, and when I re-login, this message would appear.

Repeated endless times. What the ???? Yesterday morning when I  woke up, I relogin again, went to settings again, several times, no success. I went to the office to have internet access there and reported my problem at Smart Communications fb page, then followed it up via pm, gave my pocket wifi #, 8:50am Thursday. I added in my pm that "Frequent service interruption is bad publicity, even if you get more revenues, there are also more dissatisfied customers. thank you."

Smart replied via pm at 9:17am that day:

Got it, Nonoy. Send us the following details for proper coordination:

• Location(City & Barangay)

• Last successful data connection

• Latest date of reload

• Have you reached zero balance prior to latest reload?

• Device model

• Website last accessed

• Alternate contact number

I answered all of their questions at 1:32pm, then  asked “Now that I gave all info that you want, when can you possibly restore my web use? thank you.”

No reply until now, 6am Friday, and the problem is still  not solved. What's the problem, Smart?

Problem with duopoly. I also hear and read from some friends their problem with Globe Tatoo. Both Smart and Globe have their own system of inefficiencies and customer inconvenience. This is something that we customers have to endure.

Will update when Smart would finally reply and give any update.

Friday, 9:30am (Update)

I just checked my wifi at 9am, it's now working, thanks Smart.
Earlier, before 7am, I posted this blog article at (a) Smart's fb wall, (b) Smart fb pm, and (c) @LiveSmart twitter account.

Mabilis pala ang aksyon when you publicize your complaint. Nonetheless, credit where it is due, thanks for the action, Smart.

But here's one lesson for me. I will expect that this problem will re-appear and resurface. So I will buy a Globe pocket wifi. Load Smart unlisurf P250 for one week, stop for one week and instead load Globe unlisurf  also for one week. So that means reduce revenues for you, Smart.

Then I will compare which of the two duopoly will give me more reliable pocket wifi service, and blog again.

Saturday, 9am (Update 2)

The problem was back last night, around 10:30pm. After one hour of login, relogin, Settings, changing passwords, etc. I gave up. When I woke up today, the problem  is still there. I reported this to Smart fb wall  and fb pm.

SMART, grrrr! Why? What are the reasons why this problem keeps coming back? How to avoid this from coming back?

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See also:
Telecom oligopoly 1: Smart takeover of Sun, April 02, 2011
Telecom oligopoly 2: Slow internet in the Philippines, April 13, 2011 
Telecom Oligoply 3: Viral story against Globe tel, January 23, 2016