I was in cyberlimbo for the past twelve days at least. For reasons known only to my provider, my internet connection went pfft, this despite my updated payment. At first, starting on the second half of September, connection could not be established in the daytime and would only be available starting at nine in the evening. To say therefore that it deprived me of precious opportunities for my business, plus precious little time of night rest, would be an understatement. About two weeks ago, it completely went dark. Zilch. Zero. Nada.
I frantically dialed my provider’s customer hotline number. It was useless. I dialed their customer service number, their trunk line number, their fax number, even the cellphone number of their collector. All proved inutile. I dialed a hundred times, maybe more, spent more than two hours doing the finger exercise, at first using my pointer, then my thumb, and slowly graduated to my ring finger and pinky finger, until I finally gave the middle finger – yup, the dirty one – and ended up cursing my internet provider.
And cursing my condominium’s developer more.
You see, all this is part of the grand design that my condominium’s developer made. My condominium’s developer, whose owner is now the country’s newest taipan, did a quite splendid job in capturing us, his naïve market, with heavy chains around our necks by promising us that those chains which actually stole our freedom were made of 24 karat gold.
My internet connection is but one of these business tricks that my developer employs. My developer entered into an exclusive contract with this relatively unknown internet provider and imposed the exclusive services of this same internet provider upon the unit-owners. We couldn’t avail of DSL from other internet service providers. The developer would not allow that. At one time, the developer even did not allow wireless connection and only relented when they realized the futility and foolishness of their directive.
The thing with this internet connection is that each connection or subscription is merely one branch of the same tree, one domain distributed among hundreds of users. The service provider advertises that their company offers at least 5 or 10 mbps but they do not provide separate modems for each subscriber. This means that the available 5 or 10 mbps is being shared by the hundreds of subscribers in the condominium. Imagine a six lane highway where all cars are going to a one lane bottleneck. There are over 700 units in my condominium and if only one half of these unit owners will subscribe to an internet connection, it follows that the subscriber only gets 5 or 10 mbps divided by 350 of the original service that the provider is supposed to deliver. If all 350 unit owners would be connected to the internet at the same time, that would mean that each would only be up at a measly 28 kbps. Harang? But wait, there’s more. Callously, the provider charges an amount which is even higher than that of the leading DSL providers. This is because the internet provider is under contract required to give a certain percentage of its profit to, but who else, my developer. Galing no?
Another gisa-sa-sariling-mantika business trick of my developer: the telephone. The developer, despite all our protests, uses the PABX system in our condominium. I have nothing against the PABX system per se, but this system only works best in offices. It is never – again, never – for residential units.
When I first set my foot on this place, there were only two available lines, one PLDT, the other Bayantel. These two lines were distributed through PABX system among the 700 plus units. So, imagine if one would make telebabad and another would connect to the internet via the dial-up route. T’was the worst telephone service in the whole country. It was impossible to make a call and it was impossible to receive one, too. You can do the finger exercise for five hours, ten hours or even for twenty-four hours. The result would be the same: a calloused dirty finger raised against the developer. But wait again, for there’s more. The developer charges an amount which is higher than the charges made by both PLDT and Bayantel! So, suppose the developer pays P700 per month for each of the two lines, and charges each unit owner P800 per month and there are more than 700 units in the condominium. Wow, that is already a whopping P560,000 plus per month income for the developer! And that is only courtesy of two telephone lines at a total monthly capital of P1,400. Great business, right? Galing! Galing talaga! At kami naman, tanga-tanga talaga!
All these of course are illegal and one can always file a complaint at the proper venue but that of course would be hard to sell to say the least. File a case against a taipan? Heller, c’mon, any volunteers?
About three years ago, however, we started to raise fists and voices and began to unfurl red banners. The developer fortunately saw the biblical “Mene Mene Tekel” and reluctantly added more lines. Tinablan din ng hiya. The good news: we now have 45 lines. The bad news: we still use the PABX system.
We have the same problem with cable: the cable provider had an exclusive contract with the developer. Skycable is more unreachable than the sky. Setting up discs or even the late Ernie Baron’s antenna is anathema.
The problems in my condominium community seem endless. We have problems in electricity rate, water rate, association dues, even in real estate taxes for common areas. It is best expressed in Filipino: lahat pinagkakakitaan ng developer habang gisa sa sariling mantika ang mga unit owners.
All these, however, pale compared to the most serious problem that we have ever since the condominium was constructed: fire safety. But that is of course another, well, BIG story.
Meanwhile, we continue to make the developer richer, and with the chains on our neck getting heavier by the day, we continue to play as his captured market and continue to bow to his every whim and caprice. What else can we do beyond organizing the unit owners to consolidate our legitimate gripes into one collective voice? Well, we murmur that sweetest and most therapeutic Filipino expletive:
P___ i____ talaga ang Megaworld na yan!!
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