ST: June 28, 2006
SingNet should fix access problems first
IN THE news recently, SingNet was talking about deploying ultra
broadband and raising access speeds up to 100Mbps.
The irony is that it cannot even fix basic access problems in its
current network.
I have been a SingNet broadband subscriber since May last
year.
In the first year, I was a 512kbps user but as my experience was
very unsatisfactory, I upgraded to 1500kbps unlimited plan since
May this year.
I started using an online trading portal from November 2005, and it
did not work because the network was very slow.
Since November, there is a history of my case no.5657577, which did
not get resolved.
Because of the poor performance, I upgraded to 1500kbps plan, and
my experience got worse, even for basic browsing.
Trying other networks, I have connected to the same sites using
wireless LANs in my neighboorhood and I can see a marked
improvement when I get on some of them (apparently StarHub's
broadband).
It is also worthwhile noting that when I changed the network in my
travels abroad (eg. in Korea, India), the response times improved
dramatically.
This proves that the problem is in the SingNet network and not with
my personal computer set-up or the remote servers being
accessed.
For instance, last month I was in Delhi and stayed in a hotel which
had a 512kbps DSL line.
Still, my online experience was far better than what I experienced
at home here.
Besides, most of the time on Skype, the voice keeps breaking up
whereas most others can use it quite well.
I am a telecom professional and can figure out from my experience
that it is not the DSL link, which the SingNet linesmen keep coming
to test again and again.
It is either the SingNet network that is the bottleneck or it uses
very high over-subscription on the BRAS, which effectively chokes
the throughput.
I am really tired of taking pings, trace-routes and remote terminal
traces and sending them to the SingNet staff over the past six
months.
I have done everything I possibly can to help their Tier 2 and 3
technical staff to fix the problems, but there was no significant
improvement.
The other thing about SingNet customer service is its method of
contact.
Everytime one needs to contact SingNet, one has to either call the
customer technical support hotline and go through the whole history
again or go online and fill out the customer feedback forms.
It's painful and frustrating doing it every time.
There is no way for the customer to cut short this process even
when he has been interacting on the same issue for months.
Rajiv Jain
same with us 
