InCite Smart Services Suck!

Living in a new development does have its perks, one of those is 24/7 internet supplied by InCite Smart Service. Hey I thought, no having to deal with Telkom, befok! Well the grass is pretty much the same on this side. This is a long story so lets start at the beginning….

Shortly after we moved in (the month was April) I connected my laptop to the jack in the kitchen (of all places!), called the number, got an IP address and network details and was up and running in 5min. I thought to myself, what a pleasure! The speed was (and still is) very decent. Nothing compared to the River Ankh speed experienced at the Tygervalley Waterfront units.

A month or so went by and then suddenly the internet would just be down in the evenings and over weekends. I then discovered the first problem, no after-hours support, which is exactly the time I use the internet. One particular Saturday I called the office number, the voice message said to call an 0860 number for after-hours support, so I called the number and got the same message! I then called in the week and got the cell number for the after-hours support person. Not long thereafter something broke on a Saturday. I then happily called the number only to be told that they could not help me (probably because the only person who could was not on standby) and that it would only be fixed in the week. Bloody useless I thought. I poured my frustrations out on the poor technician. Thereafter I also had a very long chat to Karen, the support person. Anyway they did seem to get their act together and started sending out notices when things went down and things seemed to stabilise.

In July I acquired a wireless access point. Due to the size of the IP range I was originally given I could not add the access point and required a larger range. On the morning of 10th July I mailed Karen at InCite requesting a new IP range, and waited. I followed up by phone the following day and was told the technical people are not in the same office as Karen. She would send the request again. I then phoned again later in the day and got told by Karen that she would call them. I expressed my unhappiness and left it at that. By the 12th I still did not have my new IP range so I called Karen and told her I could not understand why I had to wait 3 days for a new IP range. She said she would contact the technical people and get back to me. By about 2PM I still had no new IP range, so I called. Karen was unavailable so I explained the the receptionist what I was waiting for. She promised to give Karen the message. Not 5 min later the receptions calls me back and says they are already dealing with my request. At this point I lost it. I told her that I was not happy that I had to wait 3 days for something that would take 5 min to do and that I wanted my IP range before the end of the day! 30 minutes later there was an email in my mailbox with my new IP range. Why, why, why do I only get helped once I start shouting at people?! Fortunately for them the new range worked and I could now sit in the study and surf rather than in the kitchen.

So this is now where things get interesting. Included in the levy of the unit is 250MB worth of internet traffic. If you go over that it costs you 50c/MB. There are also data packages of 1/2/3GB. Which if you do the maths, the 2GB is the cheapest per MB (go figure). I did look at buying one of these packages but there was no tool to monitor your usage, which I believe is crucial, so I gave it a miss. Anyway I don’t really download much while at home, and I have a rough idea of what my usage is in a month. I did think I was over once or twice, but well within the realms of reason. I was also not sure if the bill would end up with the landlord or with me, but I never heard a thing, so I just forgot about it. Imagine my surprise when on 7th September I received my first bill for internet, a whopping R409.10 (June R407,57 and July R1.53). I replied, requesting a usage report, but got no response. Then on 13th September I receive an invoice for August amounting to R310.49. Once again I requested a usage report and pointed out that they have been promising a tool to monitor internet usage online for months now. Again no response.

Then on the 14th a circular was sent out by Marshay Daniels signed by Alan Dean (too much cut’n’paste?) requesting that everyone sign up for one of their data packages no later than Friday the 13th (is that not the 15th Marshay/Alan?) or have their accounts capped at 250MB. The attached application form also indicated that non-payment would result in the suspension of your account. Lovely stuff! So I replied to Marshay indicating that I would not sign up for any of their packages until such time as they make the tools available to monitor your traffic. I subsequently noticed that the message had been CC-ed, exposing my and about 40 other peoples private email addresses. I started fuming at this point. So I hit reply to all and sent the following:

Dear Marshay

It is obvious that you and your company still have much to learn in they way of net etiquette. By cc-ing everyone rather than bcc-ing them or using a proper mailing list you have just exposed a large number of people’s PRIVATE email addresses to everyone included in your mail. This kind of thing makes me really unhappy. I also feel sending out a mail 24hrs before the deadline is rather rude.

Regards

I have yet to receive a reply from anyone at InCite. I did exchange some email with another resident who had huge problems simply getting connected. His problem was only resolved after speaking to the complex manager. I think I might just give him a call myself.

So the moral of the story: we may all hate Telkom, but you don’t have to go far to get equally shocking service. This is not over… As they say; watch this space!

Update: I just noticed there is now a Monitor Usage button on their home page. Pity no-one has sent me a user name and password yet…