Extremely Poor Service from OpenNet and Singtel

Quick update: OpenNet is finally up on 24th December. Case Closed.

This is a rant on my utterly disappointing service by Singtel and OpenNet on their fibre optic, specifically OpenNet, the company laying the fibre optic cables and doing such a bad job on it.

The story goes...
Earlier in November, my girlfriend signed up for a fibre optic package (fibre optic internet, phone line, mio TV) from Singtel. It was installed on the last week of November. Everything was well, the internet was fast, my girlfriend's mum was very happy with the mio TV channels. Finally she have interesting channels to watch while at home.



On Sunday, the internet went down. No internet, no mio TV. So I called Singtel on Sunday evening, and Singtel promptly sent someone down on Monday afternoon to check. I was told that there was no signal from the optic fibre terminal, and Singtel cannot solve it. They will need OpenNet to come down to check. I was also told OpenNet will arrange with me for a time to check soon. Supposedly, OpenNet and Singtel will each send a person to come together. How soon, I don't know, but I decided to be patient with them.

There was no call from OpenNet.

On Wednesday, I suddenly received a phone call that OpenNet had came down to check, and there was no problem, so Singtel would send the guy down again. I was busy that day, and fortunately my girlfriend was free enough to wait at home for the Singtel guy. He came over, and said there was still no signal. Apparently OpenNet did not do its job. They were supposed to come down to check, but they brushed it off by declaring to Singtel that they have came down to check. Fact is, they did not. Another email was sent by Singtel to tell OpenNet to come down to check again.

OpenNet finally called me on Wednesday night to arrange an appointment on Friday 12noon to 3pm.
We were supposed to go on a visit to LegoLand on Friday, but since the internet set up was more urgent, we decided to cancel the trip and wait for them on Friday.

The problems do not stop here.

On Friday, we waited. No one came.
I was getting pissed. To think we have spent 3 weekday afternoons waiting for Singtel and OpenNet to solve this problem, and nothing was done. It looks as if these corporate companies seem to think our time during working hours are worthless, that we are fools that they can play around with.

So I called Singtel, and got them to check. The initial reply was, OpenNet can only come down on 24th December.

If so, why tell me they will come down on Friday?
And we have paid for the whole internet service, and waited for a week for the problem to be solved, to be told we have to wait another 1.5 week??? This, I conveyed through the phone and was put directly to OpenNet.

OpenNet checked, and did not bother to explain what happened. Instead, I was told they would call me back ASAP. I was getting more pissed, so I demanded them to get back to me by 4pm on Saturday (I am seriously doubting that they will now.)


Spent a week without internet or Mio TV (which was for my girlfriend's mum).
Spending 3 weekday afternoons waiting for these jokers to fix. My girlfriend's mum does not know English, and Singtel technicians around the area are non-Chinese.

It might have been better if the 3G network connection was wonderful. But it wasn't.



From this extremely bad service experience, we are considering terminating the whole fibre optic package now, and revert back to ADSL.

As far as I am concerned, this whole fibre optic business is a joke.


Update: Singtel came down 2 days later to fix up a 15mbps ADSL. It was off no charge, and the fibre optic wasn't charged too.

On 24th December, the OpenNet fibre was finally up. Overall it took about 3 weeks to resolve. Case closed.