Baras Rizal Online

Things have been running smoothly do far. But I do not know until when.

I’m referring to the service of Digital Communications Philippines Inc., aka Digitel. For the whole year of 2007, we had nothing but problems with their phone service (and the lack of it).

Days before the town fiesta in 2007, we lost the dial tone. Since the phone has been losing its dial tone in the past few months, we were accustomed to the lack of service, with the hope that it will be restored in the soonest possible time. I could remember this period because I always contact ABS-CBN through my cellphone to check out my price in Deal or No Deal.

More than a week passed, but still there was no service. I made a call on the morning of Feb. 5, 2007 and the lady agent said that the lack of service was due to a “network problem.” I pressed for more details and she said that the problem as at the company’s end.

Two weeks later, I asked for an update. This time, I made sure that everything is recorded so that I will have a reference in the future. CS representative said that the “network problem” is caused by stolen cables. All the agent could do, as expected, is to file a report and update our phone records. I asked for a supervisor because the situation is unacceptable. The lady supervisor hang up on me. She called me back but when I answered the call, no one is in the other line. Seems that they just want to create a Call Outbound activity in their phone log, but never really had an intention to talk to me.

On my fourth call few days after, the agent said that there is a “network problem.” Again! I asked to be more specific on what this problem is. The response of the Bisayan accented agent: “May problema po kasi sa network.”

For a year, we’re already used to this situation. Their customer service would ask for your cellphone number which, obviously, they already have. They would would always promise that service would be restored. Haven’t their realize that landline are very unlike cellphones - we cannot just change our numbers and distribute it to friends and relatives.

But wait, there’s more. Even if we have dial tone, you cannot use it for dial up Internet connection using non-Digitel cards. When I inquired why, they blamed PLDT. But even if you use their Gas card (3 hours, P 100), it would take half an hour before you could connect. Line is always busy.

I checked with their CS on the periods where there was no dial tone. They gave me the following information, which I think, is incorrect as we have been experiencing the problem intermittently for the whole year:

2007 - January 26 to March 3, October 9 to November December 12
2008 - January 28 to February 1

In fairness to Digitel, they replaced the phone set when we had a choppy reception. This was even if the phone is already out of their warranty, and in reality, we should pay for it. But the phone they gave is of no use if there’s no dial tone. There would always be a rebate after two months, but I don’t think it’s a solution. There should have been no interruption of the service, in the first place. At one point, a technician even called asking if the service is okay. I said it was fine, but we do not know until when. In the end of our conversation, he had a very good suggestion which we might consider in the future: if we are having problems with the line, we could look for another phone provider.

By the way, I saw some posters of Digitel in Antipolo offering DSL service. I think they will just convert the analog phone lines into digital Ayusin n’yo muna landline n’yo!