Dear Claudienne

I have been a Digicel 4G postpaid customer since 28th August 2010, and — living in Duncans, Trelawny — have always had some issues with the speed of the Internet that I receive.

Different technicians have visited my home and found that the modem works best if it is placed on top of my printer and facing the Digicel tower.

At the beginning of 2015 I was experiencing speeds so slow to browse and on the instruction of the Customer Care agent I held down the reset button for an extended length of time. This resulted in damage to the modem making it only possible to use when connected to my laptop with the ethernet cable.

I therefore changed to a Green Packet modem on 1st April 2015.

The service has deteriorated further since then, often being too slow to browse and even run a speed test, and sometimes there is no Internet access. There is no chance of me being able to livestream.

If I wish to pay bills online or get to my e-mails I have to do this before 6 am or I am left with no connection part-way through.

Congestion is the problem, I am told, but there are no plans to relieve this ‘congestion’ in the Duncans area.

A couple of times, after complaining and having Digicel run their tests, I have had the monthly fee waived.

In June, I spent over an hour with a Digicel technician resetting the system and finally, when he wanted me to run a speed test, my Internet service was too slow to even do that.

I requested the monthly upload and download figures in MBs for the last year and received them on 28th October.

Reading my Digicel 4G Broadband-Postpaid Terms and Conditions, paragraph 4, regarding the Acceptable Use Policy it states, ”The amount of data downloaded where the average use of the Customer exceeds the normal average use for all Customers.”

I then wished to compare them with what this ‘normal average use for all customers’ was, so I managed to access the Digicel chat line on Tuesday 1st November and asked for this information.

The agent said she could not provide it, but to call the Digicel Legal Department on 619 5000.

I was kept waiting for more than seven minutes and when a member of the Legal Department did answer she said she too was unable to give me the figures and to call 137.

I gave her my e-mail address and said I was not going to be redirected to another number and that she could find out the information and send it to me.

Well, I have not received an e-mail yet. Surely, the figures are freely available if they are quoted in the Terms and Conditions?

This is not a reasonable service from Digicel, and to add insult to injury the cost of this wonderful 4G increased in September from $2912.50 to $3145.50 a month without any prior notice.

I do not think I am getting value for money and my frustration has reached its limit, please can you help me?

SM

Dear SM

We have been in communication with Digicel about your concerns. On Friday, December 2, Digicel sent

Tell Claudienne the following e-mail:

“

Thank you for giving us this opportunity to further assist customer SM. Upon receiving your message, we immediately contacted SM and apologised to her for the inconvenience. We then arranged for a technician to visit her home to analyse the situation and also test for feasibility of other 4G Mobile internet service options. Additionally, our engineers have been making adjustments to the site that serves SM which will result in a significantly improved browsing experience.

We have kept SM abreast of our progress and she has shared her appreciation for the consistent updates. Resolution has taken us longer than expected and we truly regret this. During our last conversation with her on Friday, December 2, she was advised that we will also provide a refund for the affected period. We will continue to update SM, while our engineers work to restore service.

Please let us know if the Internet service improves.Good luck.

Again, we apologise for this, but we’re going to make sure we get it fixed.”

Please let us know if the Internet service improves.

Good luck.

Have a problem with a store, utility company? Telephone 936-9346 or write to: Tell Claudienne c/o Sunday Finance, Jamaica Observer, 40-42 1/2 Beechwood Avenue, Kingston 5; or e-mail :edwardsc@jamaicaobserver.com. Please include a contact phone number.