Zong's ordeals - got anything to share?

[Shaheer Khan]

Long story how I had obtained a Zong SIM (had it before they were
Zong) and well - I keep putting it in my phone, with hopes that I may
switch to it (since my djuice costs quite a bit for calls). Leaving
the coverage issue aside, here's what I'm wondering if anyone could
help me out.

Sometime in January, I was trying out the service and see what changes
have been brought to it, but two things irk me alot - and (not)
surprisingly, nothing's been done to address them.

First of all, I'm in Rawalpindi, and GPRS/EDGE hardly works after 5PM.
I've tried using it before, and it works like a charm (I remember
getting an average of 20KBps sometime during midday) which isn't bad
for the area that I'm in (coverage issues, in short). After 3, the QoS
depreciates drastically, and well - atleast till 12.30AM. I haven't
had the patience to test it out after that. I've called them up,
emailed them, but no one checks their email (while their CSRs
boastfully give out the email address). Each time, they ask for 24
hours to solve the issue, but in vain. Can someone tell me if they
face the same issue? Finding reviews about their GPRS/EDGE service on
other portions of the internet are futile since we have massive
loyalists trolling everywhere. Their EDGE goes well-below GPRS
standards - which is quite surprising!

The second issue is that on my specific Zong number, I can't call my
mum's cell. The odd thing is that I can call my mum's number on other
connections - Zong or Telenor or whatever; the problem is isolated to
my number. I found about this issue in January, and called them. They
asked for 24 hours, and nothing happened. I put in my SIM in between
intervals, and still, nothing. It's March, and it's waaaaaaay past 24
hours for both issues.

Emailing them is futile. Calling them yields only a parrot's response.

Is it me, or is Zong severely half-cooked and want to make an
impression of a big-boy?

And another issue (while I have no personal experience, but I know of
two people who have said this and have left Zong for that reason): on
Zong's Free package (don't remember the exact name), if your balance
drops below Rs. 5 (or maybe 10), you revert to their 12-aanay package.
The switch is done without informing you, and when you want to add
your free numbers, not only do you have to pay the package conversion
costs, but also have to pay for the number addition costs. A brilliant
way to make money when you're offering dirt-cheap calls.

Can someone help me out if there is any way how I can get things done
in Zong, or shall I throw out my SIM for good (considering they're
advertising heavily for their post-paid brand)? Their email-to-sms and
sms-to-email facility works partially (hence "half-cooked" services).
Share any experiences you may have had for a company that's almost a
year old and can't seem to get some basic things right.

[Fouad Bajwa]

I'd say they are half cooked / half boiled with what they are trying
to do. I was gonna shift from Ufone to Zone for both my Cellular and
Edge needs but after sourcing out testimonials from a number of family
and friends, Zong was still unstable, vibration in the reception QoS,
Edge issues and so forth. So I'd better continue to stick with Ufone
because some how they are still working better than what Warid
provides and Telenor's Edge charging is nuts. Yeah, I bought Telenor
and dumped the SIM as soon as I lost my credit in a matter of few
hours!

These ordeals are really painful and frustrating. Some of us are not
so rich and well to do businessmen or professionals and of course for
anyone who makes these investments has one agenda, WE WANT TO BE AND
STAY CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET but somehow that's the fruity land for
these Telcos, yeah, awesome, lets grill these stupid customers!

Imagine a continuous investment of around Rs. 7210 for Uphone, Rs.
1500 (+Rs.9000 installation and initial advances) p/m for Cybernet,
Rs. 2000 for Telenor and then the monthly loading of Ufone Cellular at
almost Rs.2000. What the heck are we doing and what the heck are we
paying for. This is insane, just to communicate from GMAIL and get
work done that's around 70K and still pain!!!!!

Okay its our one way ticket to being the star consumer of telco
services but if I spend that much, I must be treated as a corporate
client and that's just me there. Every member of the family have their
own Internet and connectivity issues!

Shaheer, your problems should be hear soon too, I assure you!

--

Regards.
--------------------------
Fouad Bajwa
@skBajwa
Answering all your technology questions
http://www.askbajwa.com
http://twitter.com/fouadbajwa