Our PLDT Woes, And How We Are Dealing With Them

Let me just share with you our sad, frustrating experience with PLDT Home. Let’s call this post “our PLDT woes.”

I’m not writing this post to discredit the provider, but to document our frustrations on how they are handling our calls for support, and maybe, just maybe, they will strive to update their playbook on how to attend to fault tickets.

I can only go as far back as January, as it will be too much to include the reports we submitted back in 2020. It’s 2021, folks, so let’s focus on the current year. That is not to say that we are only experiencing this now. We have been at the mercy of PLDT’s inefficient service for a looooooooooooooong time. There are not enough o’s to express how long we’ve been suffering.

So let me share the series of fault tickets we have had since January this year.

A litany of fault tickets

January 25: 37154743 – we received confirmation of the report telling us we will receive an update within 24 hours, but we never did. The connection somehow restored, although on a crawl, but I’m all for looking at the bright side. Better a slow connection than no connection at all. So we did not call again. Saved us at least 30 minutes of listening to bad music.

February 11: 37416708 – we received confirmation of the report telling us we will receive an update within 24 hours. But only on February 13, at 7:37 am, did we receive an update that it was finally assigned to a field service team. Two other updates were received, telling us that our ticket has been assigned to their field service team, at 9:41 am and 1:31 pm on February 13, respectively.

Obviously, the fault was not resolved, because on March 1, we again called in a report.

March 1: 37689599 – this was not resolved. We called to follow up on March 2, because while the connection has improved from being intermittent at about 20 times a day, we are only getting disconnected at around 10 times, and when we are connected, it’s crawling.

Now here is the funny part, and I’m being sarcastic here, coz it’s not at all funny.

The person who took my husband’s call, Janice, had the audacity to tell him. “Sir, di ba ang report n’yo is wala kayong net? Meron naman ngayon e.“

So what was she implying then? That we don’t have the right to complain of a slow connection? Be thankful that we have connection? Yes, I think that’s what she meant when she said that.

Great customer service!

March 5: 37750639 – this was not resolved. And although we received a notification that they will send us an update within 24 hours, they never did. On March 7, someone called. He asked, “Sir, ok na ba ang internet n’yo?” To which my husband replied, “Sa ngayon, may connection kami, pero sobrang bagal.” The guy who called just said thank you, and ended the call.

March 10: 37825355 – We called again, to follow up on the March 5 fault ticket because why else would we call? The problem was not resolved! It’s not like we have time to spend waiting for someone to take our call.

But lo and behold! The March 5 ticket, according to the one who took the call, this time named Ice, has been closed. Closed! Without being resolved! When my husband asked when it was closed, Ice said it was closed on March 6. That was the day before that nameless guy called on March 7.

Why I think they are closing tickets

So, guys, this is how PLDT gets to avoid rebates for non-delivery of service. I don’t know what their Service Level Standard is in terms of fault resolution. Nobody from PLDT’s customer service could answer me when I ask them this. But in an ideal world, when a subscriber doesn’t get the service they’re paying for within a certain period of time, they should get a rebate. In fact, the old telecommunications company servicing our area before it were bought out by PLDT had a Service Level Standard of 72 hours. Meaning, your fault report has to be resolved within 72 hours, or you don’t pay for each day that you’re out of service in excess of 72 hours. But here is PLDT closing fault reports even when it has not been resolved so that if and when a subscriber complains, they will not be compelled to issue rebates.

This makes me wonder. I read on social media some people experience no service for weeks. Are they getting a respite from paying services not delivered? Hey, you’re welcome to comment below if not.

Intermittent connection

Our main problem has been the intermittent connection. Let’s not even include here the slow connection when we are fortunate enough to be connected, because again, I’m all for looking at the bright side. Being grateful for the little things.

Have you ever experienced opening an email and then not being able to send a reply because you just lost connection?

Or seeing that notification on Gmail saying “you are not connected, try again after xxxx seconds?”

Or being on Facebook and seeing that notification that says “you are offline?”

That’s how an intermittent connection manifests.

Troubleshooting

Please don’t think that we, as subscribers who are badly in need of internet service, were just sitting twiddling our thumbs while waiting for PLDT to give us the service due us. And may I mention, service we are paying for, on time, and in full?

My husband has been actively looking for ways to have our problem resolved from our end.

I know that I’ve said earlier that we are not going to include 2020 anymore. But it’s important to note back in December 2020, our modem was replaced after so many reports. And it somehow resolved the intermittent connection, at that time.

So during the call with Janice on March 5, my husband asked her, “Ano ba ang operating temperature ng modem n’yo?“

Sadly, she didn’t know the answer.

But my husband is my personal MacGyver. So he went ahead and got a mini fan just for the modem, and put the modem on top of two bars so that the modem is not touching the surface, allowing air to freely circulate and help keep the modem cool.

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The intermittent connection was resolved, no thanks to PLDT.

But wait, there’s more!

Are we on intranet?

My husband and our son, Jude, now closely monitors the temperature of our modem.

But although it has resolved the intermittent connection, the speed (or lack thereof) is another matter.

Yesterday, I took time to capture this.

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Folks, we are paying for a plan that is supposed to give us 50 Mbps. And that screen capture above is a sad version of 50Mbps.

So here again is a funny thing… and again, it’s not really funny at all.

Remember Janice? The one my husband was talking to on March 2?

By the way, my husband always has his phone on speaker when calling. I am the subscriber, but my husband is always the one to call them, because between the two of us, he is the coolheaded one. I avoid calling PLDT at all because I just might die of a heart attack even though I don’t have any heart ailment.

So on March 2, Janice, who introduced herself as a a tech support, asked us to do a speed test. And we did, using a Singapore server. At that time, we were getting just 3 Mbps. Janice insisted we should do the speed test using the server nearest us, which is PLDT Lucena. My husband said, “That will not be realistic, Miss. If I do a speed test using just another PLDT server, then we are staying within PLDT. That’s not internet. Do you understand what I’m saying here?”

And apparently, Janice didn’t, because until the call ended, she was saying, “Sir, hindi po talaga namin ina-advise na mag speed test kayo using international server.” What the fudge!? Are we on intranet!?

But please allow me to show again yesterday’s speed test. Notice which server I used? And the speed is still not reaching 10 Mbps?

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Should I be happy and dancing the jig because hey, it is at least not 3 Mbps!?

Even a saint will lose it

My husband is a saint. That’s why he is the designated complainant.

But guess what? He’s just about ready to explode, too. He’s been spoon-feeding these guys on what they could do. He’s been telling the PLDT guys, you keep doing the same thing, and the problem keeps reoccuring. Maybe it’s time to try something else. Like maybe buy a better quality modem?

He was just telling me a while ago…

“Hindi na pwedeng mabait ka lang. Baka matulad tayo sa kapitbahay natin na walong buwang naghihintay.“

My appeal to PLDT

So here’s why I’m finally writing this post.

May I just make an appeal to PLDT to add the following to their playbook?

• Have a Service Level Standard. If you already have one, make sure that your frontliners know what that is, so that when customers ask, they will receive an informed answer. Or better yet, make your customers aware of this.
• Train your frontliners to be customer-centric. When an irate customer calls, that means there is a problem that only you can resolve. So please, train your frontliners to answer in a way that won’t make an irate customer be more irate than they already are. Believe me when I say, we’d rather not call you. But we have to. So be nice.
• Train your frontliners on the technical stuff. We have the “turn-off-your-modem-for-5-minutes-then-switch-it-on-again-what-color-is-the-light-on-your-modem” exercise memorized. We are not calling you to be coached on something we have already done prior to calling you. Instead, train them so they know what is the operating temperature of the modem should be, coz really, it just might be the one thing that’s causing an intermittent connection. And here’s a big thing. We are on a Fibr connection, so when a member of your technical support team tells us the reason that we are having an intermittent connection is that the line might be grounded, that makes you look bad. Guys, fiber doesn’t get grounded. Light passes through the fiber cable, not electric current. Give your people proper orientation, please, so they don’t give BS reasons to customers just for the sake of giving them a reason why their connection is sh*tty. Another reason why we’d rather not call you, promise! Conversations like this with your team would be hilarious if we are not so pissed already.
• Train your technical support to look at every angle. Teach them to go outside the box. Consider every possibility. No one… not one of the technicians who’ve attended to our complaints have mentioned the possibility of an overheating modem as the cause of connection loss. My husband did his own experimentation and it has helped us avoid connection loss.
• Get a better brand of modem. Our long-time suffering now points to the modem overheating. Although this is not to be considered a conclusion to our ongoing experiment, you might want to look into that, too. We are in a tropical country. And we can’t all afford to be in airconditioned rooms like you. I’m sure there are modem brands out there that can go up to 60°C. What additional cost you incur for better brands of modems will be covered by what you’ll save from paying manpower you need to attend to customer complaints.

Tips to my readers, all three of you 🙂

Don’t be a pushover. We have a neighbor who has not had internet for 8 months and they just keep on waiting… and waiting… and waiting… And they can afford that because they are a couple of seniors who only need the internet to do video calls with their children. So they go to a daughter’s house to make the call because they have no internet at home. But mind you, they are still paying for the service. My husband and I, we can’t afford that. We work from home. We need the internet, so if you are like us, then demand the service you are paying for.

Try to keep your cool. Better yet, keep your modem cool. So here’s what we’ve learned. On our own, mind you. Again, no thanks to PLDT. Their Fiber Home modem has an operating temperature of -5°C to 45°C. To monitor your modem’s temperature, go to PLDT’s internet router dashboard at http://192.168.1.1.

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You’ll see that our modem’s temp now is at 53.08°C. And that is with the fan already. And room temperature is at 30°C. But so far, we’re holding on.

Maybe we’ll get our house air-conditioned.

But until then, do share your PLDT experience as a comment below.