My internet connection has not been working from the past eight days. I have already raised a complaint with etisalat’s call centre, but the problem has not been resolved. Over the past eight days, a technician came to my home to check my connection. He found that the fibre optic cable was faulty and needed to be replaced. The fibre optic cable is within the scope of etisalat so it’s their responsibility to rectify the problem.
But the technician closed the complaint with the comment that the internal route was blocked. It is the customer’s responsibility to clear the route inside his own home, but outside our building, how can we do any work when it comes to etisalat’s cables and pipelines? The technician closed the complaint without notifying me of any resolution.
If we need to pay for blockage rectification or fibre cable pulling, etisalat can charge us, but I need immediate action in order for my issue to be resolved.
I have already requested them to resolve this issue, and have sought follow-ups, but there has been no response from their technical team. Nobody has come to rectify the issue. So, I finally requested for a cancellation of this service, but now they are saying they will charge me an exit fee. I don’t really want to cancel, but my complaint has been pending since so many days, that’s why I decided on this option.
I tried to call and send emails to etisalat to rectify the issue. If it’s not possible to solve the problem, on etisalat’s end, I would request them to please cancel my internet connection and take their devices back.
From Mr Ali Zaib Iqbal
Dubai
The management of etisalat responds:
Thank you for bringing Mr Iqbal’s concern to our attention. Etisalat customer service team would want to apologise for all the inconvenience he might have faced. The customer had cancelled his eLife account. We have refunded the customer for the non-usage days and transferred the amount to his postpaid account. We have already reached out to the customer and he has agreed to the resolution provided.
We have investigated this matter, and here are our findings:
• The customer lives in a labour camp, and had initially laid the cable without any proper route under the tiles.
• The customer had shifted the optical network terminator (ONT) and fibre optic cable from etisalat’s originally installed location to another location, which damaged the fibre optic cable.
• Initially, services were restored but the customer reopened the docket. This docket was assigned to a fibre access node (FAN), so FAN action was required to clear the blockage and to arrange a proper route after the customer laid the cable in a nonstandard way. The team had informed the customer several times about the issue.
• While staying at a labour accommodation, Mr Iqbal had two triple-accounts working at the same location. He was sharing internet as a business.
We have photos showing the nonstandard installation of the cable, the transfer of the ONT and fibre optic cable to another location, and a working ONT being shared with other residents.
Mr Iqbal responds:
The connection has already been deactivated and I have received the payment in my account. The problem is now resolved, thanks to etisalat and Gulf News.
(Process initiation: February 3, 2018. Response from organisation: February 8, 2018. Process completion: February 17, 2018.)
Editor’s note: Do you have similar issues that you would like to raise with us? You can write to us at readers@gulfnews.com.
