My humble complain to Maxis (A Telco in Malaysia) and their extremely quick, TWO second response to me.

All my readers knew I'm recently troubled by slow internet connection speeds to the point of unbearable.

Of course, part of it is attributable to my fix line Streamyx connection, which was provided by Telekom, a Malaysian government affiliated company (past or present or whatever), which automatically grants it a "The Shield of Impenetrable Low Satisfaction Expectation Status" from us consumers, thus would be forgiven for what had basically gotten better over the past two days (observing period), but there's still another culprit, from the largest telco in Malaysia, that seems to be at the forefront of our information and communications technology industry.

This is my humble complain to Maxis via their website at http://www.maxis.com.my


"I'm a Maxis customer for god knows how many donkey years. My annual contribution to Maxis is not fewer than in the thousands.

First of all, for my 012 280 2124 sim card, I've yet to receive any initiative from Maxis' end to offer me a change to a 3G sim card, of which I've been expecting, yet wished to remain silent to observe, this is a sign of poor customer management from Maxis.

How many 3G phones are selling out there now? Don't you want me to use more of your data services?

Secondly, although you've not offered me a 3G sim card, I've actually started using your so called 3.6mbps Maxis Broadband wireless modem for 6 months now, and I must say, the speed, the reliability is extremely slow and discomforting, can you not know where is Bandar Utama? One of the most affluent areas in Kuala Lumpur?

Whatever indication I've receive from your broadband signals, whether its a full 5 bar or whatever bar, the connection speed are extremely slow, to the fact that I; as an early adopter of internet user in Malaysia, one of the first customers of Streamyx and whatever this god forsaken country had pledge for its continuance towards the pride upon its Multimedia Super Corridor mega scheme is offering, I can say that the connection speed you've promised of 3.6mbps are nowhere to be seen, in fact in most cases, its only about 50kbps maximum. Wanna bet? Go to suburb places like Nilai and compare your so-call 3G speeds with a dial up modem capable of 52kbps and we'll see who's faster, of I almost forgot, there might not be coverage over there.

So Maxis, I know you’ve de-listed yourselves from the Kuala Lumpur stock exchange markets, and is currently a ‘puny’ Private Limited company now, and had no intention of revealing your profits or shareholders or whatever that may or may not concern you. BUT….

At least, deliver whatever you promised.

If your freaking internet connection speed is a 1/1000th of what was promised upon, can I pay you RM0.118 a month? (I’m paying RM118) maybe I'll pay you RM0.20 and you can keep the change.

Answer me, or there goes your loyal customer for years, and whoever, whomever, I may have financial/friendship/authority influence upon, or just anyone I’d stumble on the streets, I’d turn them away from Maxis.

Now we all know we all know, or at least are affiliated with not less than a thousand people, how about a Facebook account that pledges for the support of people who are not happy with empty promises of 'broadband' connection speeds from Maxis? Sounds interesting?

Fix the problem you dumb wits. If you don't know how to fix your problems, let me teach you, if every freaking mega billboards you placed in the city could relay your transmissions, I'm sure you won't receive any complains.
Awaiting for a good reply from either your customer service, or CEO Mr Sandip Das himself. "


AND AFTER I CLICKED ‘SUBMIT’ , MAXIS IMMEDIATELY APOLOGIZE TO ME. WOW! That’s fast response!



Speechless and hopeless.

**UPDATE**

Ok, after I posted this Maxis called 4 hours later, to my surprise upon clarifying whether they've received my complaint submission, they said they read it on Wheels Weekly. Whoah, quite some cyber troopers they have.

A nice lady called Caroline called up, mentioned to me that the 3G sim card will be sent over (nice), and in terms of the Broadband modem, she needs my cooperation by using my broadband again last night at Bandar Utama and logging on to http://bandwidthmeter.maxis.com.my to do a quick check and let them know of what are the problems. I really actually want to post this yesterday as soon as I got back, as I really appreciate the call, and of course Caroline's handling of it (perhaps she might not realize I'm such a reasonable person to even begin talking to), but y only way of getting online yesterday would be the Broadband, and if you continue reading now, you'd figured why you only get to read this today.

Ok, remembered I mentioned that from my experience as an internet veteran, my experience tells me I'm receiving not more than 50kbps from the 3.6mbps modem? Yes, what I receive last night was nothing surprising to me, the results range from the slowest of 2.56kbps to a maximum of 77.6kbps. From a signal strength of 3 bars, indicating I'm connecting using HSDPA.




Well, I know the problems won't subside immediately, and I know its frustrating for customer service officers of Maxis needs to continue charming, pacifying customers that might give them plenty of shit through the phones, and they too have their own problems of traffic jams, domestic quarrels, pressure from work etc to dealt with. But, its not like we Malaysians are demanding for compensation when the connection falls anything remotely far from 3599kbps, no, we're talking about speeds that's around the those of dial-up modems, yes, back then when Ms nicelady Caroline might still be chit chatting online through MIRC and ICQ.

If the Japanese, due needs from consumers could developed FOMA back in the days when people might thougth WiFi could be some kind of Italian food, what's the problem here? With better, cheaper technology available? I mean, there are even certain spots in KL that we knew lines are bad, certain curves or some area of supermarket malls. Why? Is KL that huge? I mean, when I was in Switzerland, we had to travel by bus for almost 1 and a half hour through forest mountain roads to reach the foothill of Mount Jungfraujoch, then a train and lastly a cable car to the submit of one of the highest places in Europe. You know what? I have full bar service on my cellphone.

That's what I call exceeding expectations. Not creating false ones.