Good on you. This is what happens if you persist and get to the right people. Hopefully this will actually happen. Maybe this is one of the reasons why it appears that 4Mbps Streamyx users are now being assigned to the 218.111 IP range which gives better connections.?

Just FYI. I mentioned this in another thread. Back in 1996, Jaring dialup internet users were having technical / connectivity and tariff / call costs issues with (then known as) TMB.

TMB changed their phone tariffs and internet users costs increased. TMB came out with packages which internet users did not think was fair. So Jaring users protested.

Briefly:
- users complained to TMB.
- the press covered the issue.
- the cabinet instructed TMB to meet with internet users on this issue.
- a closed door meeting between TMB officials and 5 representative Jaring users took place.
- the papers were there to report on it.
- suggestions of an open letter to the PM.
- a collection was started to place a full page advertisment in the papers regarding the issue.

The final step of running and advertisement in the papers were cancelled as TMB finally introduced the 1.5sen/min dialup charge for 1511 Jaring users.
The already collected money was given to a charity.

Hopefully something good will come out of such a meeting for Streamyx users this time.

Firstly, I do hope something useful for Streamyx users will come out of such a meeting. So don't take this the wrong way.

Generally, the top most people are usually not there. They will send representatives to the meeting with instructions on what to say or do already predetermined. The excuse may be the top people are away on business or another meeting came up or whatever. Even if they are there, most of these top people don't really care as they are at the top already, if you know what I mean.

If you think about it, MCMC is supposed to be the monitors. Do they need users to push for a meeting? Their job is to monitor and caution / fine TM for poor performance. You mean MCMC cannot hold a meeting of their own to discuss all complaints with TM without users pushing for it? Its all a matter of whether people want to do the work that they are supposed to be doing. Or whether they want to close an eye to what is going on. MCMC has guidelines and regulations to be followed. It is their job to ensure those are being followed.

After all the hundreds of complaints in these forums and other forums / blogs etc, or in the papers, TM does not know something is wrong? TM does not announce what the problem is? TM thinks everything is ok? The top people in TM don't read the papers? They don't have meetings with their downline who are aware of the problems??
They are either not doing anything about it because they got their own plans which we don't know about, or they don't know what to do to fix the problems.

Again, I hope we benefit from this meeting. But TM will probably use this to their advantage. That is, the reports in the media that they were willing to meet with users etc etc. They will probably say what we already know. That is, they are in the process of upgrading their infrastructure. They are upgrading their backbone to fiber. They are replacing the old DSLAMs with IP-DSLAMS or RDSLAMs. They plan to eventually replace last mile copper lines with fiber to the home (FTTH). The AAG cable will be online in a vouple of months or so which will boost their international bandwidth by some 60Gbps or whatever figure. They are in the process of deploying HSBB which will offer users high speed internet of 10Mbps or so. Other companies can lease the HSBB infrastructure and provide their own value added services and so users will have more choices. Etc etc etc.

TM will say they are studying how to cope with users excessively using bandwidth capacity to download or P2P 24/7. They will say some 20% or so users are using 80% or so of the bandwidth which is why everyone else is also being affected. So they need to have fair usage policies. Maybe they will take the opportunity to say they will be imposing data transfer limits per month so all users can have a proper share of the bandwidth.

They will say they are resolving the different IP range problems. Because it appears that 4Mbps users are already getting better IP ranges now. And why wait till end of May? Is it because they are currently doing maintenance / upgrading of their customer service support system until end of May? So they can say what they have done to improve things. They will say they are training their support staff to be able to help users more, not just read from a standard script.

They have added a clause saying they only guarantee local connections, not international connection speeds. When asked, they will explain that there are many factors affecting international connections such as routers at various points, inter-connectivity with other bandwidth providers or ISPs, congestion on the international links, the destination data center or server being congested or under heavy load etc etc. All out of their control, so they cannot guarantee anything. And yet TM is part of the consortium with a 9-10% stake in the USD500 million AAG cable project.

Anyway, some questions to consider.

1. Why have they disabled tracert responses on their routers? Or at least when using Windows TCP based program. We can still use other software to do tracerts, so what is the point? And yet the support ask to do a tracert and screenshot and email them. With a screen full of * * * ?? Tracert is one of the basic tools to help troubleshoot network problems.

2. They need to have a proper support escalation procedure where customers can request to speak with Level-2 or higher for more serious problems than whether the ADSL light is blinking. That is why most people don't complain to support because it is of no use to speak with Level-1 most of the time. Most users can troubleshoot by themselves what the Level-1 normally asks them to do anyway. We need more tecnical help.

The support center does not have a regular Streamyx connection like we have. They are on some dedicated lines I guess. So when we say we got packet losses or high ping time, they ping ad say no such problem. Of course, its different lines, different networks, different routes etc. This sort of thing is why users get frustrated with the support.

And it is a waste of time waiting for Level-1 to fill in a report then pass it on etc, then hopefully if serious, the Service Recovery Team or the Broadband Management Center will respond after some time.

3. What is their current international bandwidth capacity and what plans to incrase it and when. Can their network and international links deal with the 1.4-1.5 million users? Or have they practised irresponsible overselling with all the promotions and agents pushing for new customers when basic stable connectivity for existing customers is not there.

4. Why do we still have 384K / 512K connections when speeds all over have increased so much? If we wer on 56K say 12 years ago, we should at least be on a minimum of 2Mbps lines now. A real basic package should be at 1Mbps at a much lesser cost than now. 2/4/8Mbps should be a norm by now. There has been no upgrade forour speeds in say the past 5 years or so and also no reduction in prices for the current packages. So we are effectively paying more than what we are getting.

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Added on May 9, 2009, 9:10 pmThis is just an excuse. You can talk to the Level-1 supervisor if you insist and willing to stay on-hold for quite some time. I have spoken to a few of them at different occasions. However, the supervisors don't really know much either. I have documented my encounters with TM support in various posts. Some as ridiculous as being told a satellite crash is causing issues.

You can also talk to a Level-2 if you really persists. But they normally call you back to follow-up, they don't pass you directly to them.

I have posted here a few times asking people to be persistent and keep making reports and also to call the TM HQ. But it seems no one really wanted to follow though, although everyone has so much time to complain here post after post. I think another example was roy_pck who succeeded after persisting.

TM as an ISP has a shocking level of support. They don't even bother to update their website with latest announcement most of the time. A place where users should go to to check on the latest issues. I have made several complaints about this to TM Streamyx Complaints Dept and the PR Dept. Another example is when they had a cable problem on 18 Mar, but kept quiet even though users were complaining to support. I called TM HQ on 23 Mar about this and on 24 Mar, there was an announcement. It took them 1 week! I would really like to see how the CEO of TM would respond to this sort of issues.

Edit: I think I mentioned the wrong dates above. The problem was in Feb, not Mar (I think). Sorry, so many issues, lost track of dates...


This post has been edited by mylinear: May 9 2009, 10:52 PM

siukeong7888, just to say, we all have different opinions and perspective on things. That is ok. I hope you and andrew9292 agree to disagree on this issue. At this time, we can all just try to co-operae to solve a common problem. Name calling and in-fighting will not help. So let's all take it easy.

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Added on May 9, 2009, 11:12 pmNo, you only need faster Streamyx... and all will be calm...


This post has been edited by mylinear: May 9 2009, 11:12 PM

I guess they have the most to lose from 4Mbps customers who pay RM16x-26x. Maybe users started downgrading and they decided to do something.

Please note this is mentioned on their website. So they will say you should have read the relevant documents before signing up.

http://www.streamyx.com.my/customer_care/c...ir_usage_policy

Yes, this is the case with different IP ranges which is why we say there is routing issues eg not optimum routing. Someone on a 218.111 range can confirm - there is probably 3 local hops before hitting the international link. With some other ranges like 115, 118 etc, there can be eg 6-7 local hops first. This

You must understand. TM does not owe us any explanations. Or they will give some irrelevant explanations. Because, what you going to do to them? They are not going to lose their job if they don't explain. They will do what they want. When users have no other choices, all the more reason they don't have to explain anything. If users have a choice, even if they leave, they will just sign on new users. When a corporation becomes very large, their attention to their customer base becomes less.

They are not going to be bothered about some users making complaints to them when the complaints should be directed at their own ISPs. They are not going to terminate inter-connect agreements which is part of their revenue.

TM is responsible for the international link that they use for internet connectivity. If there is a circuit fault in their links, they have to report it to the team who is responsible to maintain the links. If a fault occurs somewhere along the link, eg near China, TM has to co-ordinate with the team responsible for that link segment to get it fixed. TM is responsible to have sufficient bandwidth to cater to its users needs.

Some time back, I too have contacted a technical person at a data center in US to ask about slow access. After some testing, it was concluded that the problem is with TM's connectivity with their international counterpart via the international link, most likely on TM's side. At that time, the international counterpart's network did not show any latency.

There is no harm trying. But one should not lose sight of reality. TM is fully aware of Streamyx problems. They do not need to have a meeting with users to find out about it.

Reality is that these top-level people are not going to say, "Oh, we didn't know about this. Let me make a call and get my people to fix it. All will be ok in 24 hours.".

The fact is, if they are aware of such a pending meeting and the topic of the meeting, shouldn't they already inform their downlines to investigate and fix these problems (assuming they didn't know)? The fact is, why schedule a meeting towards end of the month when they have been told (hence the meeting) about Streamyx problems currently going on for the past few months?

Instead, they will do a presentation outlining what they have done for the past 6-12 months with regards to maintenance and upgrade. Then what they plan to do in the next 6-12 months. And how services will be much better in time to come . See my previous posts.

This will show MCMC that they are doing everything they can. Then a press release to the media about it.

But no harm trying. Just be realistic.

I thought I read somewhere (probably on this forum) that TM had 150Gbps. But the above article states 100Mbps by end 2008, which also cannot be verified because later it says AAG will be up by Apr 2009, which was last month. It says an additional 30Gbps this year, but I read somewhere that AAG would provide 60Gbps extra. The numbers all conflict.

The last-mile became the lost-mile a long time ago. I believe in those days , one of the arguments was that the last mile was commissioned by then JTM which was government department. Hence the cost of the infrastructure was paid by tax-payers. Correct me if I am wrong.

MIMOS/Jaring were responsible to spearhead internet usage and growth in Malaysia. I believe they did a good job and would have continued to do so if their hands were not tied with an unfair playing field. They had a loyal following of users from the early days. Even now, it appears they do a much better job with all the limitations than TM does with all the resource at their disposal.

MIMOS/Jaring has grown from dialup to wired broadband and also wireless. VoIP etc. But I guess they are not big enough to cater for all. At one time they were supposed to tie up with Astro for internet service via Astro satellite connection. That project did not materialise in the end.

Maybe personal infrastructures are being improved...?

Yes, internet usage patterns of users have changed. No longer just for emails and visiting websites with mostly text and little graphics. Putting aside issue of heavy downloaders and P2P usage, TM as the service provider should keep up with the usage changes and cater for it. Are we the only ones who use the internet so much? How about others in other countries?

No one is asking for dedicated lines or charity. Things were not so bad about 6-12 months ago but has got worse since. Why is that? If its due to a large influx of users, then TM should freeze new signups if they cannot cope with the demand. Or ensure they can upgrade their infrastructure to cater for the new demands.

Added:
As chris2k says, look at their own ads. TM is the one pushing Streamyx with the ads and through agents everywhere. Why keep taking on large number of new users if they cannot cope with current users. They promote packages for certain types of usage. But users don't quite get to use it for those purposes. Does that amount to false advertising?


This post has been edited by mylinear: May 11 2009, 02:01 AM

webdesignempire, you may have misread chris2k's post. It was in reply to p4n6 asking p4n6 to be reasonable. Please re-read post #90.

At least that is how I read it, chris2k may wish to clarify further.

Looks like TM's unstable fiber / copper connections have spread and jumped over to humans...

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Added on May 11, 2009, 2:53 pmMost utilities and services are pay per usage (PPU). Electricy, water, Astro (based on packages), mobile phones, fixed lines (especially international calls), etc. Even wireless broadband companies have data transfer limits per month. There is no such thing as unlimited. TM does not say unlimited data transfer (not that I know of). They say unlimited access / usage.

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Added on May 11, 2009, 2:55 pmYes, I said this before. I think the minimum normal package now should be at 2Mbps, maybe with a basic 1Mbps for very low usage. We have not advanced as we should have. No upgrades in our packages for nearly 5 years, no reduction in existing prices either. So we are actually paying more and getting less.


This post has been edited by mylinear: May 11 2009, 02:55 PM

A guess would be the press will report on how TM is concerned about their customers and had a discussion on issues that mattered to the users and how TM has outlined plans to provide even better services in the future.

I am wondering whether this is going to be a friendly meeting where TM does its PR work, or are users going in with guns blazing demanding for explanations and immediate improvements?

Will this be a closed door meeting? With TM having a short briefing with the press after that?

This post has been edited by mylinear: May 11 2009, 07:56 PM

Here we go. Not surprising. I wonder when the new date will be. The next day? In June? Do they need more time do do more upgrading so that they can talk about that? Or their PR dept not ready yet with excuses? Well, let us know what they say next.

It does seem that they are delaying. Supposedly TM is upgrading their backbone to 10Gbps. Maybe they are waiting for more upgrading to be done first and as I said in my previous post, their PR dept needs more time to prepare some presentation of great things to come, HSBB, AAG and whatever.

This does not change the fact that TM has been ignoring customer complaints to a large extent with no proper media release or explanations on why their customers are facing slow connections etc for the past months. TM has not been forthcoming with voluntarily issuing rebates to their clients as a whole due to the low quality of service it has been providing recently. There has been no transparency or accountability. They have treated customers very poorly eg by asking customers to check modem, phone line etc etc when the problems are clearly on TM network side.

In your previous post, you said that TM will come to you soon. Then you say you will still meet with MCMC. Does this mean the proposed meeting on Wed afternoon is only with some TM officials and not MCMC as well?

First of all, thank you for doing all this. I however do not get any idea of what is the actual result after this meeting.

The top people, either the CEO or VPs or whoever were not there. As I said in one of my earlier posts, only lower level staff who do not have actual power to do much will meet with you. Not even a GM came, only Asst GM.

1. I want to double check with you, are you a corporate Streamyx customer? Is that why there was a person from the SME dept there?

2. Where did this meeting take place? At your office?

3. Apart from yourself, were there any other Streamyx customers at the meeting?

The most important #1 issue of slow browsing was answered by saying they have to refer back to the tech dept. How silly are they not to have a top tech person there to answer the main issues?

I can understand how excited you are for achieving what you have with this meeting, but this is a PR move on their part to say they are listening to you. But the point remains that there is not even a single solution to all the points you put forward. They are delaying actual action as they are progressing on their own schedule without having to be answerable to customers. I hope you can see that.

Of course they appear sincere at the meeting. That is what they are trained and need to do with customers who are not happy with their services.

So another 2 weeks until a meeting with MCMC? Did TM say they will arrange another meeting sooner than that?

I'm sorry, but I fail to see what has been achieved. There is no point talking to anyone except decision makers who can fix things ASAP. Everyone is complaining about slow connections and they don't even send a Tech representative?

I know you said your post is a summary and you will provide details later. But your summary does not show any solid answers or results from TM. So I guess the details will not either .

If you have the permission, go ahead and post the video, maybe we can get a better idea of what went on.

Again, I'm sorry to say this. Maybe you are seeing this from a different angle than I am. That is ok. As far as I am concerned, TM already knows about all the issues you brought up. Surely its not the first time they are hearing it from you. My hope was that they would actually give some solid answers or explanations rather than excuses. They have not done that. Waiting for answer does us no good at this time. They should have come prepared with solid answers.

I'm not quite sure what you mean above. But I take it that they had said things that you were told or not allowed to repeat to the public. If so, they would have mentioned those things to you to keep you satisfied but they are not willing to publically admit to those things.

Its something similar to how some 4Mbps users are getting the "better" 218 range IPs assigned to them. Although those packages are higher priced, that does not mean they are the only ones who should get better connections. The higher price is for higher speed. All users should get good connections and only speed varies based on package prices. Higher price should not mean better connection while lower price means bad connections.


Actually my question was whether you are supposed to meet up with TM again for a follow-up meeting where solid answers will be provided? I thought from the start the whole idea of this was to meet up with the top / high level decision makers? It has taken 1 month for this meeting. Then another 2 weeks for meeting with MCMC. Then what? I think by all that time passing, eventually TM would have got their way by delaying and continuing to upgrade at their own schedule, not because they are being pushed. Thus customer would have had at least 4-5 months of connection problems by then.

The 100 number with option to get to Streamyx support has been there for some time now. TM has already said 1 month ago that they are upgrading their customer service system until end of May.

You should make the video available sooner than that. We have all been following this and giving opinions and comments etc for weeks now. Since this meeting has already taken place, I am sure most of us would want to know exactly what happened sooner rather than in a couple of weeks time.

I am also keen to see what new thing or change or hope has come out of this. As I said earlier, I don't really see what new thing TM has said. It seems to be the same things we have been talking about for weeks already.

The above clause is supposed to be what the customer is responsible for, not whether TM should rebate for downtime. The above means that if you subscribe to Streamyx and then decide to go climb mountains for the next few months, you cannot come back and ask for a rebate for those months because you didn't use Streamyx during those months because as far as TM is concerned, they provided you the service and you didn't use it, so it is your problem, not theirs. That is correct.

What they seem to be doing now is to pull out whatever clauses they can to suit their need as an excuse to prevent customer for asking for a rebate for poor internet connections or downtimes. That is wrong.

These are being answered by customer service. Maybe you should call the HQ and ask for the Legal Dept and ask them what exactly the clause means. The problem is, they know most of us will not do so or will give up after a few tries.

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Added on May 28, 2009, 1:30 amI don't think you are going to be too popular with webdesignempire with such comments. I don't think I too am going to be too popular with webdesignempire with my posts either....

I too want to point out to webdesignempire that when you started this, you said you would demand for answer, you would not let them get away easily etc etc ... to that effect.

I am actually not angry with you but I am disappointed with your summary post which does not seem to give any hope about the current problem. I am hopeful though that since you had a long day, maybe tomorrow you will post more details or just pot the video to save you al that trouble writing long posts.

Maybe you can answer these questions so that we can understand better why there seems to be lack of information which we have all been waiting for.

1. Did they know you are video taping the meeting?

2. If so, did they object to it at all?

3. Did they tell you that you could not show the video to others?

4. Did they tell you that you cannot inform other Streamyx customers about what exactly was discussed at the meeting?

5. Since this meeting was held in your office, I am not clear why you didn't invite other Streamyx users or the forum admins etc to participate. I can understand if it was a meting at TM office where they decide who to invite.

6. Depending on your answers above, this meeting seems to be them trying to pay attention to your problems (or to keep you quiet) rather than to address all Streamyx customers as a whole.

7. Did they tell you things and then told you not to repeat it to the public? No need to say what things at this point, just want to know if this happened. Is that what the "inconvenient truth" means?

8. Did they check on your specific connection issue and tell you that they will get the technical to resolve it for you? It is actually ok if this is the case because you have done all this work and it is your reward.


This post has been edited by mylinear: May 28 2009, 01:30 AM

This is not surprising. You are partly lucky, but it is also because they want to get you off their backs. This is fairly normal. If you complain loud enough or high enough, they will do something to keep you quiet so you don't go around leading a whole pack of wolves to eat them up. Keep the troublemaker at bay. Make an enemy your friend. Or whatever you want to call it.

If you read my previous posts on this issue, you will see that I have always asked users to persist in their complaints. Not everyone will get their problem solved, but there is a good chance that those who keep persisting will, if nothing else, just to shut them up.

Well, I have posted about this and as we all probably know or can guess, long term resolution is upgrading DSLAMs to IP-DSLAMS / RDSLAMs, upgrading local backbone to fiber, upgrading the old ATM connections, eventually fiber to homes, AAG in a couple of months, HSBB coming out later on, etc etc etc. Maybe packages being upgraded to higher speeds as well? Customer service system being upgraded, better training of support staff, maybe more technical people answering support calls so further troubleshooting can be done rather than just whether your modem light is blinking. How long is long term? In months or years. Short term solutions? No real effective ones as can be seen for the past 3 months or so.

While thanking webdesignempire , I too would like to advice not to be too naive when it comes to TM and what they say. My initial few posts in this thread may have seemed sceptical to webdesignempire as I did feel that you were being naive about what can be achieved. At the same time, I wanted also to have as much hope as you had even though maybe it was a bit false hope.

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Added on May 28, 2009, 2:10 amYou are not alone...

Its not really user by user basis. That is what they say. This affects almost all users. But as you have had first hand experience, their user by user basis is see how much noise or how high up you go. Then they solve that case.

They can tweak individual user profile as they please in their system. They can assign you a small range of "good" IPs which you will always get as in your case. Or even a static oneone if they choose to do so. These like the 218 range has better international connectivty.

In addition to my earlier reply, I want to also tell skykids244 that rebates are possible. I got a RM90 + RM25 rebate in the past couple of bills. However, I suspect now they are not going to be too keen on rebates because they realise that there are too many users who are having problem and will request for rebates. hence they point out irrelevant(?) clauses or add new ones to prevent rebate requests.


This post has been edited by mylinear: May 28 2009, 02:10 AM