CAT - a complete shower of idiots

[buksida]

Notice - this is a rant so dismiss any seriousness from this post.

My home ADSL connection is one of the poorest in town but I have been procrastinating over changing it due to the hassle factor of getting a new line, its the CAT hinet package and its somewhere between dial-up and carrier pigeon in terms of performance.

Well it went from pigeon to nothing yesterday, no service at all, so mrs B popped into their office, next to the post office, to get them to re-connect it. 'No problem' said the nice chappy in there and all was forgotten about - until mr B got home from work to find out there was still no internet connection.

Now of course being Thailand everything shuts at 5pm so the world has to stop until people come back to their offices the next day. A Thai '24 hour' support line actually means 'two hours before lunch and two hours after'.

The following day I take a trip to the CAT office myself to ask them to reconnect it. 'Call TT&T' said the bored looking chappy in the office, done that, they said speak to CAT. 'Computer problem' was the next reply - nope, I was working with computers while you were still peeing over your grandmas chili plants. 'Call service center' was the last one at which I left the building before I felt the urge to insert that bill printing dot-matrix printer into him.

Back at home the service center is not responding, TT&T are saying call CAT and CAT are now saying buy a new router. This went on for most of the day.

Finally the two companies actually spoke to each other whereupon the TT&T technicians actually asked the buffaloes in the CAT office if they had checked the line connectivity.

'Check now, disconnected' and at the flip of a magic switch from CAT I'm back online.

And people wonder why Thailand is a hundred years behind Singapore or Hong Kong.



Now I'm actually looking forward to retirement where I don't have to do any of this horrible work stuff or rely on that scary technology stuff or any of those pesky 'services'.

[Terry]

Mr. Buksi

Can I suggest that you move this to the 'You had a bad day' thread?

Just an idea

[Super Joe]

Notice - this is a rant so dismiss any seriousness from this post

We have a major ongoing CAT problem too, it's a nightmare.
We think they're both strays, they frequently wander round our garden setting off our dogs that are inside the house. You get woken up in the middle of the night not knowing if there's a burglar in the house or it's just another CAT problem.

SJ

[sandman67]

Buksi

the correct Father Jack approved term is shower of bast@rds

makes you want to do a Basil Faulty doesnt it?

[Spitfire]

OK, while we're having a rant about computer services, I'll throw my 2 Bahts worth in as it's about TT&T and is almost as stunningly pathetic.

Moved to a new rented house about 5 months ago and thought that I'd better 'hop-on' down to the TT&T office to get connected. Turns out that they haven't connected the estate yet, OK, so put my name down and got a few other mates that live nearby to do the same.

So, eventually the "installation" guys 'rocked-up' and hooked up the house in the normal way but no Internet. They messed around for a while trying to make it look like they were doing something but to no avail, surprisingly.

They say that it's not their problem and we have to get into contact with the office. We contact the office and they are predictably perplexed at the lack of Internet. I did however mention to the wife that asking the pretty office reception girl about Internet conectivity problems at our house had a low chance of bringing about any possible solution to the problem. Went home before the wife 'lost it'.

On the phone with them for a week with the promise of "tommorrow" each day and finally the manager said they would send round a TT&T tech guru, "Wow!" I thought mockingly, my problems are over.

Said tech guru came round and sat at my computer and after 2 minutes phoned up the office I'd been to and asked them to check the authentification code that they had given me at time of purchase.

Turns out they gave me the wrong code, it had already been used by someone else, gave the tech guy a new one and it worked straight away and he sheepishly left swiftly before the wife cooked him up with som tam.

Breath-taking incompetence!

[T.I.G.R.]

TOT in Cha Am is stunningly co-operative and my DSL is and has been working splendidly.

Why don't you guys move up north and then maybe I could get some good chow up here?

P.S. - Lovely traffic as well.

[barrys]

Have to say that I've had pretty good response from Pranburi TOT, too.

At least they do turn up when I've had a problem and the technician gave me his mobile phone number so I can contact him direct.

They've even phoned after resolving a problem to make sure everything really is working ok.

Sure, the connection speed is up and down but it hardly ever dies on me completely.

All in all, pretty good personal service to compensate for a not so good technical service.

[PeteC]

Don't want to sound cynical but it almost appears service suppliers in HH are now taking a leaf from the Pattaya book in that you don't get anything done quickly or correctly unless you grease someone's palm. This seems to be chronic in areas with large concentrations of farangs and tourists.

I'm happy to say that now that we've moved to the sticks, they haven't learned to be that way...yet. Pete

[norm]

TOT in Cha Am is stunningly co-operative and my DSL is and has been working splendidly.

Why don't you guys move up north and then maybe I could get some good chow up here?

P.S. - Lovely traffic as well.

I'll second all of the above by TIGR, people in Cha Am are actually helpful and get the job done.

But TIGR if we tell everyone then Cha Am will get like HH and be to crowded with pain in the butt traffic.

[Winkie]

I have a TOT connection in Cha Am too.

Can confimr that support is good from them, howver, I need to support far too frequently, every 3-4 weeks the line goes down, they confirm all is OK, when its cetainly not. But they do come and jiggle something around, and mostly only leave when its working again. This problem has only materialised in the last 3-4 months, after 2.5 years of good service from them.

I find the acheivable speed to be very good too. Better than I get from True in Bangkok

[buksida]

It does seem strange that in other areas such as Cha-am, Pran and Bangsaphan the support, service and connection speed are all somewhat superior.

Maybe they know Hua Hin is over subscribed and just can't be arsed to support those that continue to pay for sub-standard services, they've made their quota - who cares about the rest.

[buksida]

Guess what - almost a month to the day we have exactly the same problem with exactly the same bullshit run-around with call centers and CAT & TT&T blaming each other.

Complete and utter useless shower of idiots.

You would get a more reliable internet connection and better service in Sudan!

[lomuamart]

If it's any consolation my TOT connection is dreadful today. Dosn't seem to be even getting to dial up speed.

[T.I.G.R.]

I've been noticing some speed problems for the past week or two. If I remember correctly didn't we have some problems with the overseas cables a year or two ago that caused slowdowns like this?

[buksida]

Well 36 hours and they still haven't reconnected it - going in there today to cancel hinet and give someone hell.

I don't suppose the Maxnet service will be much better but I don't have much choice (unless I buy another phone line from TOT). Currently connected via the mobile and GPRS - at least that works!