TheRodent's website jolts Sentech into action
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Editor at Large
DISGRUNTLED Sentech customers are waging an online war against the state-owned signal distribution company over the quality of its fledgling MyWireless "broadband" internet service.
One customer has even registered the internet domain names sentechsucks.co.za and mywirelesssucks.co.za, and has posted criticism of the company, its product and customer service on the websites, in a bid to draw attention to his grievances.
The websites appear to have jolted Sentech into action. The company has agreed to have the technical problem fixed by Monday and communicate with all affected customers, in return for the transferal of the domain names to it.
In addition to the websites, other customers have inundated internet forums with complaints that the MyWireless service has deteriorated significantly since its launch in February and no longer qualifies as the high-speed broadband service that Sentech advertises, and for which it charges more than R649 a month.
Sentech, which is run along commercial lines, was granted a licence by the Independent Communications Authority of SA in 2002, allowing it to deliver e-commerce, internet, broadband and value-added telecommunications services directly to consumers and businesses.
But questions are now being asked about whether Sentech has the capacity to do so, after it spent R300m on billing systems and back-office internet infrastructure for MyWireless.
MyWireless is SA's first broadband cellular network, based on third-generation (3G) cellular technology. It predated by some time the announcements this week by cellular networks Vodacom and MTN that they had acquired noncommercial 3G licences.
It uses a radio-based network in the major metropolitan areas to connect customers within the radio "footprint" to the internet without wires.
Critics said yesterday that MyWireless in some areas had delivered speeds slower than those provided by a normal 56K dial-up modem.
Sentech's GM for communications and marketing, Michelle Potgieter, confirmed yesterday an agreement had been reached with a disgruntled customer, known as TheRodent, who on his sentechsucks.co.za site had launched an attack on Sentech .
The bandwidth problem, which had affected fewer than 1% of MyWireless's customers, would be rectified by Monday, Potgieter said.
http://www.bday.co.za/bday/content/direct/1,3523,1636588-6078-0,00.html
________________________________________________________________________________________
Save a horny friend........
SETUP: Durban Mal Park(36) 53% sig 128k | D-Link Tri-Mode Dual Band Wireless router and a PCI 108Mbps wireless card
]
