Is There A Small, High Quality/ Speed Internet Company Here?

[homeinbuenosaires]

I have had it with Fibertel Evolution. I’ve always had terrible customer service experiences with them, back to 10 years ago when they were Ciudad Internet, took 9 months to set up my internet and stole $300 USD from my US bank account for no reason (I got it back, as it was clearly fraud). I’ve tried alternatives but they seem worse and as far as I know they aren’t offering 30 Mega, which is a nice thing for me to offer in vacation rentals.

This time, because one of their guys left a cable on the terrace disconnected while doing work on another apartment’s problem, my rental was without internet/ phone for a week. They made me go and wait 5 hours each time, twice, and didn’t show up or notify me. The third time, they showed up late. When I called to ask about compensation for this, the guy (who I’d waited half an hour to get through to - I probably spent 3 hours total on hold that week) saw my very Anglo name on the account, told me to go back to the US and hung up on me! I speak fluent Spanish without an accent, by the way (people usually think I am from Venezuela or Colombia), I just don’t use ‘vos’ etc. Not that this should matter.

I bought a 3G dongle for my clients to use during this outage and plied them with 7 or 8 bottles of wine and I am STILL thinking of what else I can do. Sometimes the disconnect between the customer service I give and that which I receive here is just too much.

Anyhow, I already have Fibertel in two apartments and was considering getting it where I live but after this there is NO WAY I can continue to give them my money, on principle. Telecentro are possibly worse, so I am trying to find a creative solution.

Is there a reliable boutique high speed company, preferably foreign-owned or managed (ANY nationality), that someone can recommend? I am prepared to pay a modest premium, on three accounts, to be able to tell Fibertel where to shove it, and I want to give my money to people who are serious and enthusiastic about their product.


Thanks.

 

[Jaredberryman]

I'm sorry to say that there is no such thing as a quality small Internet company, because your bandwidth will be worse. The small companies rent out bandwidth from the big companies, so even if you did find such a company, you are not going to get 30 mbps. Maybe you can find someone who gives better customer service, but I doubt it. Your best bet is unfortunately Fibertel--you just probably had bad luck with the service, as I have never gotten bad service from them. Make sure you get service people's names as a friend of mine that works in these companies told me that if you call and directly report someone they get into hot water or possibly get fired. Always use the defensa al consumidor as a threat when you talk to management as defensa al consumidor will fine them heavily if you make a complaint (and my understanding is that the major companies here get lots of fines from defensa al consumidor). It sucks but that is the way things roll here in this country right now.

 

[Gringoboy]

For what it's worth Homeinbsas, I have had a connection problem with Evolution and one of the phone techs tried to fob me off with the age old virus/malware story.
IE, I should delete the temp files etc, run netstat and a bunch of other stuff.
The fact that ALL the PC's in the house had a speed problem kicked that into touch.
I phoned back to be told by another tech that it was a known problem and that the engineers were out in the street fixing it.
My best advice would be to stick with them as Fibertel are the best of the bunch.

 

[Montauk_Project]

When you have a problem with service, such as being treated rudely or that they do not make a repair:
1) if you can, record the audio of the calls, write down call time, ask for a number
2) if the problem is more than 72 hours, you can make a complaint at the corner of Peru and Mexico. This is the national communications center. They will start legal action on your behalf. In my experience, the problem will get fixed quickly after that--this is because if they don´t get the problem fixed, they will get slapped with heavy fines.
3) facebook them, write comments on their wall. this might help. if you have a video of their poor customer service and post it, even better.

 

[homeinbuenosaires]

The small companies rent out bandwidth from the big companies, so even if you did find such a company, you are not going to get 30 mbps. Maybe you can find someone who gives better customer service, but I doubt it.

Tex - What inspired this comment was remembering having seen ads around Recoleta for small companies - usually catering to businesses, I believe - advertising fiber optic internet service etc ... now, I have no idea about any of this but I remember thinking 'If I get fed up with the big companies, I know what to do'. Now I am wondering how to find them, even just to make enquiries, but sadly I didn't make any notes of company names/ contact numbers etc and it's been a while.

 

[homeinbuenosaires]

Montauk Project -

Thanks very much for this advice. I did make notes of all call times, asked for names, got all the 'numeros de referencia' etc. Now the internet is back up and running, would #2 still be an option? I wish I'd known about this. I could call back and hold for 30-45 minutes to try to get the 7 days' free - which is their policy, so I doubt I'd get more at this point - but to be honest my time is worth more and I want bigger results (one month free would be fine) or to just change companies and move on. If this happens again, I will of course go to Peru/ Mexico as soon as the 72 hours have passed.

In 2004, when it took me 9 months to get internet set up, I actually went in person to the companies with a hidden microphone and recorded my meetings with managers. I didn't know what to do with the recordings (and wanted to avoid more aggro, recovering from cancer and all) so that went nowhere. Useless, all of them, and some of them were extremely rude. Hence my desire to find a young, small, enthusiastic internet company.

 

[Gringoboy]

I'm really surprised to hear about Fibertel being rude to you, I really am.
Maybe one of them was having a bad hair day, who knows?

 

[homeinbuenosaires]

Gringoboy - it was several people, over the course of about a week, so I don't think so. My previous interactions have been similar - in fact, when they came to set up Evolution, one of the two guys disappeared to McDonald's for the entire installation so I actually had to help the poor guy who was left behind! The good part is that when it works, it works, it's just dealing with their staff that is irritating.

One of the times I called, when I said that I had been to wait twice now, for 5 hours each time, and nobody had come/ called, the guy said "that is just your opinion". I actually spent a couple of minutes discussing the fact that if he thought that this was 'my opinion' and not an easily verifiable fact, then we were not starting from the same point of departure... he refused to budge.

 

[Iznogud]

There used to be a couple of companies that worked with wireless service. They pretty much sucked 100% of the time. I know, I worked with them, not for them. They built a network all along the coast in the northern part of town before Fibertel made its move. Can´t remember their name right now.

Maybe iPlan is still in business.

Wouldn´t recommend either but a well supervised Fibertel install should work fine. My experience since I started installing-using internet in the mid 90´s is that over the phone lines internet is awful, DSL included, the Corporate Fibertel CS is worse than the regular one and that you should bitch constantly until you get a proper cabling all the way to the roof.

 

[Montauk_Project]

I don´t think they can get you back pay, all they do is file a lawsuite and it gets them to respond quicker. It isn´t magic, but I had my phone die on my two times and it was the only way it ended up getting fixed. I have found that many companies here will do something if you start writing on their wall (go to the telefonica "fan page" and 95% is people screaming at telefonica).
Here is the website: http://www.cnc.gov.ar/
they might have an office closer to you, but I recommend doing the complaint in person (when I went the office was empty). Bring your DNI and bill.