For over an hour I have been staring at my Linksys DSL modem status. The DSL connection is “Up”, Downstream is 8190 Kbps, Upstream is 486 Kbps and QoS is UBR which I assume is UBER which is supposed to be good (since I’m offline I can’t even go and check). Everything seems to be okay yet somehow the gateway interface is “DOWN” and has been down for almost 2 hours.
The fact that DSL connection up means that the signal should be good, yet somehow I cannot “dial in” the beloved STC Afaq DSL servers. That’s the only assumption I have: STC’s servers simply can’t handle the load and they should buy some servers already!
Why did I reboot the DSL modem in the first place? Because the Upstream was only 100Kbps and it made accessing the web slower. That’s it: I won’t reboot my modem even if the Upstream was 1Kbps. It’s not worth being offline for that.
Now we have Mobily: the iPhones in some parts of Riyadh are having problems connecting to Mobily’s cell towers. iPhones simply lose the cell network and stuck on “Searching”. So now I can’t even use the iPhone to connect to the Internet, leaving me offline for this night.
Update on Mobily: disabling 3G fixed it. Thanks Tom Merritt!
I will probably post this by the morning and hopefully Internet connection should be back.
Update: Last time I ramble uncaffeinated! fixed facts! Sorry Mobily.
Both the Saudi Telecommunications Company (STC) and Mobily has announced yesterday that they are the first to offer HSPA+ (Evolved HSPA with download speeds up to 56Mbit/s!!!). They announced the same thing in at least 2 different Saudi newspapers: AlRiyadh and Al-Eqtisadiah simultaneously!
Here are STC’s “news” articles: on AlRiyadh newspaper and Al-Eqtisadiah newspaper (Arabic links). The two articles are identical, in fact they are most likely a press release by STC. STC claims to be the first in the country, however…
Mobily had the same thing: on AlRiyadh newspaper and Al-Eqtisadiah newspaper. In addition, the news was also announced in Saudi Gazette English newspaper. The first part was identical to the Arabic press releases however it did include some info about the new Mobily Connect modem promotion. Mobily claimed to be the first in the region, makes no sense because…
STC was wrong!Both were wrong!
At least one telecommunications company had HSPA+ with 21Mbit/s available in the region. Zain Kuwait had HSPA+ since September 2009 (Kuwait News Agency link) and is called e-GO. Isn’t Kuwait party of the “region”? So why is Mobily claiming to be the first in the region when Zain Kuwait clearly had it first and who is bringing it first in Saudi Arabia? STC or Mobily? Both claim to be the first.Zain Kuwait actually released an HSPA+ device (Kuwait News Agency link). I found nothing about Zain Kuwait updating their network.
The Big Question
Two major Arabic speaking newspapers (AlRiyadh and Al-Eqtisadiah) published conflicting articles, each claiming to be the first. Why didn’t the newspapers verify the information first? How can the readers take them seriously?
As I said earlier, STC’s free SMS is only helping spread rumors like this one at Arab News:
There are concerns bogus Health Ministry officials are visiting homes with the intention of robbing residents. Citizens and expatriatwes have been circulating warnings via SMS messages about the con men, although the Ministry of Health has denied the rumors.
As if that not enough, someone started another rumor: “STC free SMS are valid for the first part of a multi part SMS” and referenced Al Eqtisadiah newspaper as a source. Al-Eqt was quick to respond to this rumor, denying it in this SMS they sent to everyone whoever used their SMS news service:
توضيح من جوال الاقتصادية:
يؤكد جوال الاقتصادية عدم صحة الرسالة المنسوبة إليه والتي تم تناقلها عبر الرسائل النصية حول التصريح المنسوب لشركة الاتصالات السعودية بأن الرسالة النصية يتم احتسابها في حال تجاوز حجمها رسالة واحدة،وقد تلقت الاقتصادية بيانا من الاتصالات السعودية يؤكد مجانية الرسائل النصية والصوتية ورسائل الوسائط بغض النظر عن حجم الرسالة داخل الشبكة وذلك طيلة فترة المكافأة التاريخية والتي أطلقتها الشركة بعنوان ويتواصل الشكر.
وللمعلومية فإن رسائل جوال الاقتصادية تبدأ بالرمزaleqt5005.
STC continues to brib… I mean “thank” their customers by offering a month of free SMS/MMS. This came after a month of free calls. Oh yeah, many customers are saying that they got billed for their calls for the last month.
I will say it again: STC is still having problems with their billing system (from the complaints I see on twitter). Arab News talked about it in September and November: people still receive a bill way higher than their bill’s ceiling credit. CITC refused the original promotion only to back down from their decision.
Here is what’s bothering me: STC continues to turn a blind eye to their billing issues. They probably paid so much money for the new billing system and are too stubborn to admit that they have problems.
They call their offer (in Arabic) “استمرارا لمكافأتها التاريخية غير المسبوقة” which translate to “Continuing their historic, unprecedented rewards”. Yes, dear customer. We messed up your bill so much that we will grace you with a reward. STC should just admit it already, say that they are sorry and that they are making it up for their customers who did not abandon them.
By the way, %40 of mobile phones are now Mobily numbers.
And here’s something interesting:Al Eqtisadiah (The Economist) Arabic newspaper had a fascinating article about STC’s free SMS “promotion”. They had some observations: people are abusing the SMS system, sending idiotic messages such as “achoo, I sneezed”. Hoaxes and rumors are also being started using these messages. Don’t forget: a lot of Spam! The following video comes to mind:
The flood of SMS has apparently affected an important service that customers are paying for: Mawjood Extra. This service sends an SMS when you missed a call. According to Al Eqtisadiah many customers receive their Mawjood SMS after hours of the call. This “offer” is effecting the quality of service for many customers.
Update: I called STC’s 902 support, the guy was trying to avoid telling me what I wanted to know but in the end he said “you can call for 48 hours and it’s ok”.
Now STC has announced that they are offering one free month of phone calls starting today November 21st. Mobile (Jawal) and landline (Hatif) can call each other for free. Prepaid (Sawa) is not included.
2. The “press release” claims that it is a historic promotion and no telco has ever done anything like it. Most likely false, then again, not every telco messes up the billing system the way STC did. STC also said that they are “rewarding their customers”.
3. The billing system is still not working, people had their data usage jump from 400MB to 1TB! Arab News is probably the only Saudi newspaper that talked about it: “I’m sick and tired of this chaos. My bill limit is SR500. I received a bill after 4 months of delay for SR2,000. How is that logical?”. STC is trying to cover up their chaotic billing system by bribing customers.
4. This offer is actually limited. You have only 24 hours of free calls (1440 minutes). Assuming an average of 0.35SR per minute, that’s only 504SR! Remember: people were overcharged more than that! In this article someone was charged 2,000SR and their credit limit was only 500SR!
5. You know I’m picky about websites, especially for giant companies such as STC. So here’s an example of bad design: This image linked in the news post is named “freee” and it is actually a BMP file with a JPG extension. That’s annoying!
Many customers were over charged more than 504SR and STC until now did not issue their usual detailed phone bills. They also never announced that they had a billing problem. What I want from STC is: admit and apologize for their mistake and issue honest bills!
I see a pattern here. STC’s newest ad makes fun of Mobily’s Broadband @ home slow Internet speed.
The ad is a parody of a Mobily ad (which I will post once I find it) where a guy wears goggles to face the “speed” of the Internet connection by Mobily.
Quick translation:
(preparing to download a file)
Guy: “Are you ready?”
Announcer: “Are you surprised by the truth?”
(on screen: 4 hours to finish download)
Announcer: “Your only solution is AFAQ DSL SHAMIL, fastest Internet in Saudi Arabia”.
Mobily attacks their biggest competitor, STC with their latest ad starring Saudi actor Youssef Al Jarrah “يوسف الجراح”. Here’s the ad (Arabic video) and and English translation:
Here’s the translation:
left: (talking to his new born child).
right: congratulations, what will you name him?
left: Nawaf (Neefo as a nickname) Oh yeah you reminded me (dials the phone) I will order Internet access for him.
right: Internet for the newborn?
left: It will be turn once he enters college.
ad guy: with Broadband @ home get the Internet immediately from Mobily.
left: God help them, “all our operators are currently busy”.
The ad takes a shot at STC’s slow support system and to be honest I had my shares of waiting for over 30 minutes for an STC operator. Mobily: Where’s my iPhone 3GS?
The ad war between the Saudi Telecom Company (STC) and Mobily continues. After STC’s response to Mobily. Mobily has aired the following ad on 9/9/2009. The Mobily employee warns against using inferior products shown by “their brothers”, meaning STC. In the end he said “beware of fake products”.
CITC is being quiet about it. But a few days later STC has edited their ad to remove the “fake device” and Mobily has stopped airing their ad mentioned in this post.
I found this interesting comic on Alriyadh newspaper:
The title is “ad wars” and the two women in this ad are dressed in the traditional logo colors of STC and Mobily. Guess the ad war is good for the consumer, no?
This is not the first ad war between the 2 companies. It happened before in 2006 and you can read about it on Arab News.
Alwatan newspaper in Saudi Arabia has mentioned the Hilter and STC video. The article titled “هتلر والاتصالات السعودية ” talked about STC’s bad service, check the comments too (all in Arabic).
The video clip was watched almost 400 thousand times (not counting the download mirrors).
STC continues to fail with their billing system, a good friend of mine now got an STC mobile phone bill for over 35,000SR and his account should be limited to a maximum of 400SR credit. So STC’s billing system over charged him and ignored their own credit restrictions!
Update: my friend called STC phone support (902) to raise an objection about the bill. They told him “pay first, then object later”!!!
Arab News talked about this issue with the STC billing system.
The inaccurate bill amounts have caused some phone lines to be disconnected because the system triggers a cutoff once a limit has been exceeded. Adding to the problem, customers who have had their lines disconnected are unable to reconnect them because they cannot access billing information.
This was supposed to be fixed by the end of August. Why isn’t STC working on fixing their services instead of entering an advertisement war with their competitor, Mobily.
What STC is doing what “PC” is doing in this “get a Mac” ad, enjoy the video:
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