the intel on OmanTel

Thursday afternoon; 2:15pm.

Logging onto OmanTel's POWERnet system. Everything's fine until da da da da: the dreaded disconnection.

-----

Omani POWERnet subscribers have had it coming bad their way ever since they had started the service to which - by international standards - they pay a ridicilous amount to a company that couldn't care less of what they think by hanging up the phone on their hotline service and also making matters worse; not putting into perspective the number of people who are subscribed into their low-esteem pushover of a 'service'.

Almost 4 hours yesterday, and the ADSL connection was messed up. The hotline didn't work. The Toll-Free number was ringing to no answer. And their operator saying that they are carrying out a maintenance scheduled for that exact day without notifying its paying subscribers.

Let me make it straight to everyone here who thinks that I hate those damn ignorant fools of Oman-Goddamn-Tel: when you show me a good service company that gives and gives and gives until almost all of it's problems have gone away, then and only THEN will I begin to consider toning down my voice in their face.

You're a service company, for God's sake: act like it.

What is it you should expect from a professional telecommunications service company?

At least open 7 days a week like some people we know. Have a person on the phone who isn't 'not bothered' to take care of your problem by giving you the number of another person who 'may be able to help you out' since he hasn't a clue of what you are talking about. Have someone on the line to know how to treat people with the respect, dignity and mere appreciation that they deserve to be given.

You're a service company - start performing like one.

Your 'company' may be the only 'company' within the Sultanate of Oman's borders that has a license to operate with such a service to be sold to a consumer such as I. But that doesn't mean that you exploit the contract to your terms. People who pay for a round-the-clock service expect nothing less. That means when there is a scheduled disruption in the network due to maintenance or perhaps finding a frog from Paris that took the fiber optic line, it means that you should inform each and every paying subscriber in your network of this outage. No matter how small that customer's account comes out to.

I may not like it and I may not have a choice. But I may also refer this whole issue to the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority that does duckweed much about any of this.

Get your act together OmanTel - Or I'm getting it together on you.