GO cable repairs to take 'days or weeks', Malta dependent on one cable

C.Zammit

Dec 23rd 2008, 10:38

@ C.Vella

I would suggest you make a bit more testing regarding that online games theory of yours, as I'm getting on without any problems.

David Gatt

Dec 22nd 2008, 21:26

I agree with John J. Mercieca. The situation is simply intolerable. When we contact GO they seem to have no answer for this situation. They want us to be happy with this crappy service they have been given us. I suggest everyone like myself who has been left in the dark on what's gonna happen to switch to another ISP.

Does GO expect us to pity them because this was an accident? I don't care if the problem is a cable under water. They should have prepared themselves for these situations, or at least they should have repaired it in a day or two. Now we don't even know if we're gonna be stuck like this for the following months. What a disgrace!

Christian Micallef

Dec 22nd 2008, 19:11

Simple solution: Switch to Melita

P Debono

Dec 22nd 2008, 19:05

This is the fifth day without Internet and I cannot even access sites such as youtube AT ALL!

I am paying for a broadband connection and I'm getting one which is slower than a 28k modem!

Disgraceful!!!!

Daniel Abdilla

Dec 22nd 2008, 18:16

John J. Mercieca you should really:

1. switch to Melita/Vodafone right now if you have the Guts.
2. go to see a specialist because you are suffering from Internet Addictiveness.


These are normal procedures and I Dont expect any company/institution to repair a damged cable in 24 hours, when the cable is 150km off the coast and god nows how many meters below sea. Please Thank Go(d) for at least giving you a ''backup'' internet.

edward bellia

Dec 22nd 2008, 18:12

I think people are irked by the following facts
1) No official communication for the last three days as to how long these issues will continue. Days , weeks, or months? ie poor communication by their top brass. People do appreciate honesty ( an e mail to customers would have helped. I got an e mail that my subscription was due, but they kept mum on the fault issue. Gives customers that the company is greedy with little empathy)

2) The obvious lack of contingency plans. I presume they did think that this could happen, especially since it had occurred already once this year. Despite the 'agreement' with vodafone, there is little perceived improvement in service.

3) Lack of information to clients about how they will eventually 'compensate' them for their loyalty after not migrating to other service providers.

My 8Mbps subscription is only yielding 0.4Mbps maximum. This is not aimed against the normal workers of GO who are always very helpful, but to the top brass that are paid well and have been shown to have lack of foresite and dare i say incompetence.

C. Vella

Dec 22nd 2008, 18:01

The summary is this:
If you use your internet just for normal browsing - you should be fine.
If you use your internet for streaming - you are being blocked (youtube is blocked but there are other open sites similar to it that have been forgotten).
FTP - closed
If you play online games- forget it all ports are closed. (tested this myself)

Therefore for those that use the internet lightly they will experience a slight difference but nothing more serious. For the others that use the internet for other things it is completely useless. Port-blocking is the order of the day here.

As regards the repairs I do have a feeling that before the Middle East situation is cleared there will be no repairs. In fact can anybody at GO tell us if a repair team has been dispatched to the location of the fault at all? I do have a feeling that all available repair boats are being used to fix the MIddle East problem.

As regards the rest GO employees are not at fault here. Actually considering the lack of backup policy taken by their company and the present situation they are doing really well

Keith Chircop

Dec 22nd 2008, 15:56

Check your connection speed at www.speedtest.net

I am paying for a 12mb connection which is working at 1.8mb

S Briffa

Dec 22nd 2008, 15:09

@ John J Mercieca. So according to you, they must be at home cooking the turkey or twiddling their thumbs waiting for other to do the work for them, right? What do you think, that because specialised ships are doing the physical repairs, the company most interested in the repairs is on holiday? Are you really that naive?

All I said was that there is time for having a little patience and a time for complaining and that the latter can wait a little: no sob story in that. But of course you seem to be an expert in disaster recovery and know better. Well, I never complained when Go doubled my speeds on a number of times for free, and presumably neither did you. So now I am willing to be a little patient and call for compensation when the time is right. After all, as thomas degiorgio said, just go to melita, it's that easy.

thomas degiorgio

Dec 22nd 2008, 14:55

john j merciecaa.... just switch to melita and stop moaning... that's the advantage of having two companies... btw ... melita have no cables of their own... oops!!

J. Mamo

Dec 22nd 2008, 13:52

@ J.Borg

Even I can't access sites such as youtube + others

M.Camilleri

Dec 22nd 2008, 13:06

@J. Borg --

I'm also having problems accessing Youtube; good to know I'm not the only one I thought something was wrong with my computer specifically! Maybe it has to do with all the online traffic...

John J. Mercieca

Dec 22nd 2008, 12:55

@ S.Briffa ... GO is not repairing any cable, they are relying on some other specialised company either in Italy or in France to do it so don't give me the "oh GO employees are hard at work trying to fix this" sob story. What they are NOT doing atm is giving us more bandwidth from their agreement with Vodafone. Since they posted that joint statement on their website on the 19th there has been absolutely no change at all in the speed of my adsl internet (i.e slower than a 28.8k connection). The only thing that changes is the amount of lag/latency at different times of day depending on how many ppl are actually online or not.

4th day with no internet and counting. Amazing.

S Briffa

Dec 22nd 2008, 12:01

Of course it is normal for us as customers to feel frustrated at what happened, even if it would appear to be an act of God. Rather than insisting of compensation at this stage, I would rather if the providers concentrated on repairing the cable. That is the priority for us as customers and for the country. If the people at Go are busy trying to repair the cable damage asap, let us give some breathing space for them to concentrate on the priority at hand. Talk of compensation should come at the opportune time.

C.Reiff

Dec 22nd 2008, 10:47

@ C. Zammit. Sir, just because your internet is fine, possibly due to the leeching of someone else's onvol internet, you should not tell us why we should not complain. I play online games too, and guess what? I've got more than 8k lag constantly, and whenever many players are found nearby I disconnect. Also, it takes 5 minutes to log in, and if you think this isnt reason enough for me to complain as this is ruining my holiday season, or for anyone else to complain, you won't get nought but coal from Santa Claus this Xmas. Happy New Year.

J Borg

Dec 22nd 2008, 08:40

Can anyone with GO actually access youtube.com? I think the site is blocked!

C.Zammit

Dec 22nd 2008, 01:11

With all due respect, yes some people do use the internet for more than just browsing. I myself use it for work and online gaming, amongst others, and trust me, had there been major problems with the internet, the first place I would find them would be in a game. With the huge amount of players online and servers in far away countries, it should give me the scariest lag I've ever seen, but nope...nothing at all.
So guess what, I am applauding GO for providing us with a good compensation, because I've hardly experienced any problems at all! Yes its not my normal 8mb connection, but its close enough and keeping me well satisfied for the Christmas holidays.

But if most of you would rather go on moaning and groaning every minute, go ahead. As most people can tell from some of the comments here...some of you have no idea what has really happened now or 4 months ago, and have no idea what is going on!

O. Sant' Angelo

Dec 22nd 2008, 00:13

@Brian Doyle
Thank you for explaining why I'm finding it IMPOSSIBLE to FTP anything. Thank goodness I have a second usb modem account with Voda that I use when out and about but I wonder what others who need to FTP are doing.

Dexter Camilleri

Dec 21st 2008, 23:44

Regarding complaints, we have every bloody right to complain; we're paying customers. It may be out of their control but it is their corporate responsibility to ensure things like this never happen to begin with. Four days with an awful connection is just not acceptable for one of the largest ISPs on the island either. After this is fixed and we don't get our spent days back it's going to put a huge unremovable stain in its reputation.

I may have come off blunt on this but I'm horribly frustrated at the situation. I'm not waiting another day in false hope they'd fix this.

Charmaine Galea

Dec 21st 2008, 23:22

If you want to know what the speed your internet is, check online at www.speedtest.net

I checked mine after getting only half or less of pages loaded, having to refresh, and still not getting the entire page loaded.

My 2000Kbps connection has dropped to 173Kbps. ie I'm running only at 8.6% of my supposed paid-up speed: http://www.speedtest.net/result/376897822.png

Brian Doyle

Dec 21st 2008, 17:54

@Oliver Cini
You may have internet but it is not at the proper service. If you understood a little bit more about the internet you'd see that they are throttling traffic on any ports outside of 80 (web browsing). Hence anything done outside browsing is at ludicrously slow and, in some cases due to timeouts, unusable speeds. This includes things such as accessing webmail, connecting to secure servers, telnetting/ssh, peer to peer, online gaming etc. Just because you can access your email does not mean that everyone is able to do what they need to - people use the internet for a lot more than just browsing and checking mails once per day. I don't think people are angry at GO for the cable being broken - it is anger directed at the inevitability of this happening and, after already experiencing it once, anger about the total lack of backup contingency one would expect when paying for a service. To the people who say 'stop moaning' I would love to see how you'd react if you walked into a shop, paid for an item, and then they didn't give it to you. I guess you wouldn't complain?

Manuel Borg

Dec 21st 2008, 17:52

@ Mr. J Mercieca...

thanks god that the majority of customers do not have your attitude. I am a GO customer myself and I too have internet service reductions, however I would NEVER EVER would want a compensation knowing it would come from the salaries of GO employees even if that would result in my being without I.connection for a whole week... How can someone be so mean??? I'm sure GO would be more than happy to accept your migration to Melita!

I'm also really ashamed of some of you down here... when I called GO to enquire regarding the service, all of GO employees (and please note that I called them everyday since) spoke to me with a very helpful tone even though they receive thousands and thousands of calls these last days and they were utterly fed up of repeating the same things to customers, however this did not affect the way they treat each client like as he was new... they have nothing to do with melita, absolutely nothing! Melita's service was disgusting since I used to spend whole hours on the phone waiting for someone to answer me!!!

Paul Pulis

Dec 21st 2008, 15:27

I have been trying to contact customer care at Go since yesterday evening. The reply is that they are experiencing some technical difficulties. I don't recall that any 'internal' cables were severed.
So my argument is this;
If I have payed for a service which I am not getting, later on I should expect a service for which I have not payed.
In this argument flawed?

J Farrugia

Dec 21st 2008, 14:55

Can GO kindly issue an official statement soon before it's too late...how are they going to compensate the customers who have been loyal to them for many years? Are GO going to be as generous with us as those new customers who are taking up GO's offers in the christmas season?

Karl Galea

Dec 21st 2008, 14:50

OK so here we have it ... 4 months ago GO had the submarine cable incident...fine, technology is bound to fail sometimes. So I was ready to grant them that. But now, 4 months on with no backup plan is simply unacceptable. I was ready to forgive the first time around, but not this time.

Can Melita guarantee that they will maintain speeds even though everyone is now using the vodafone cable? If so, I'm switching next week.

John J. Mercieca

Dec 21st 2008, 14:33

and the JOKE continues. the awesome backup service being provided is worse than a 28.8k connection and they expect us to thank them for it?? "you can still browse websites" i was told by their customer support. LOL? WHAT? i barely browse websites when its a normal speed why should i bother with them now? I do other more important stuff on the internet than just browsing and guess what? I HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO DO IT FOR THE LAST 3 DAYS AND IM LOSING MONEY. Is it so hard to understand then that i blame GO (including their staff since they are actually involved in running that company). Yes, I have a vindictive streak too so i say again, reduce the GO staff salaries so they are as unhappy during Xmas as much as i am ^.^

Charles Sammut

Dec 21st 2008, 14:04

@ C. Reiff

This is what Go says "Should tests prove that provision of a 8Mbps connection speed is not possible, your line speed will be synched at the maximum speed achievable on your line. No reduction in standard charges or discounts shall be possible in such cases."

I am in exactly the same position as you are. I pay for an imaginary 8Mbps connection but never achieve 2Mbps. Next time my subscription comes up for renewal I will buy the 2Mbps package since my line is incapable of supporting more than about 1.5Mbps.

www.speedtest.net to check connection speed.

C. Reiff

Dec 21st 2008, 12:03

To those complaining about Melita's Customer Service, do you think Go's customer service is better? I've complained multiple times about different problems, sometimes even not about the speed (which never fails to go below 2mbps even tho I should have 8mbps), and all they told me was: What's the phone line number with which you connect? The fault isn't from our side, get a technician to help, bye.

VERY helpful service there.

Jonathan Wismayer

Dec 21st 2008, 12:00

I really cannot believe that in 2008/2009 we still eperience such problems - I am currently experiencing a dial-up service and paying money for a high end ADSL servcie. A compensation surely does not solve the problem. Shame on GO's management who experienced this problem a couple of weeks ago and did nothing about it. It is strange that whenever such problems arise, Melita's servcies are not affected. After experiencing this problem for the second time over such a short period of time, I will start preparing an email to send to my contacts informing them that I am switching from my maltanet to onvol very soon. Looking forward to have my GO internet connection restored so I can send all these messages at once - Melita here I come - hope my username is available.

Michelle Azzopardi

Dec 21st 2008, 11:07

So because Go are incapable of planning, and take six months to fix something, we could all suffer ?Hopefully Melita will remain unscatched as I've never ever been affected by all this.... Considering that I have a 30mbit connection even a slow down would not affect me. So Vodafone and Go can keep on with this banter all they like so long as Melita stay out of it.

Oliver Cini

Dec 21st 2008, 10:56

Down time for about 45 minutes is all we had for the commercial internet. and about 10 hours for the home user. many isp's now a days have a connection with both providers and after 45 minutes there was internet in malta.

I have a go connection and via vodafone i am still connected and i can see all my mail and everything else. we are lucky to have this sort of connection. now in two weeks time the new cable should be in place.

A. Demanuele

Dec 21st 2008, 10:54

@Sandro Zahra

If Go works to its rules word by word , we have to get what its ours and stipulated and paid for , this accept all situation is unacceptable , we're in 2008 and not not in 1945.

We are a democratic country everybody says what he.she feels right to say or feel , its not moaning , 20 Euros won't leave suffering hunger.

It's just fighting for your rights , as Go does when they ask for renewal , if paid later you have to pay a fine. Eye by Eye teeth by teeth

Melita had been asking for a proper contingency plan for 6 months , look what happened now.

Lino Attard

Dec 21st 2008, 10:22

I sympathize with most of these unhappy users, but asking for compensation will not improve the service. Some People are just critics without any appreciation to the hard work given by most employees when things are running smooth and even more when things fail.
I suggest that both GO and Vodafone should double their existing equipment, which requires twice the number of employees and double expenses. This would result in double the current rates for all their services to their customers. This will definitely give a more reliable service to users like J.J.Mercieca but still no full guarantees of a fail proof service. That simply does not exist in reality.

Sandro Zahra

Dec 21st 2008, 09:08

@ Moaners

Just stop moaning!! Accidents like this happen, and normally happen once every now and then (years) not twice in four months!! We are lucky that a country of 400k residents has 2 fibre-optic cable and the third will be on-line soon. Similar problems happened in larger countries and the consequences where much larger!! And for those who are crying for a refund .... will a 20EUR refund make a difference in your life?

Dexter Camilleri

Dec 21st 2008, 04:42

I just want to play WoW... Why did this have to happen exactly when my holidays have started? I really hope karma is at work here.

Maria Schembri

Dec 21st 2008, 02:34

@ Tony Cassar

I think you have no idea what it entails to move everything to another line. Usually applications have to be submitted months ahead, etc etc. A lot of lobbying is required with various companies and institutions abroad and quite frankly I really appreciate the hard work and effort the engineers and employees of GO have made to get everything up and running as soon as possible. If it was just a question of configuring a router, I assure you that no one on earth would have noticed that there was a connectivity issue.

A. Demanuele

Dec 21st 2008, 01:36

Faults arise by whatever means but if things were planned well the service would had kept running normally even with 1 cable out of order.Why are you defending GO , this situation is a result of bad management.Who never considered for at least 1 redundant connection is to blame.Why the MCA gave the license without specifically demanding for a redunadant connection?It's a known truth that redundancy is of utmost importance in the IT field.We're supposed to be 1 of the leader countries in IT.
This year 2 disruptions.Already lost 1 day outage with no refunding .Now on latter occassion first got a total blackout and then from an 8Mb account I got a 2Mbit transfer ( I have screenshots if needed ).Now when its time for renewal if you skip a day you have to pay a fine, ck below from Go's email extract.:

IMPORTANT

It is very important that you renew your account before the expiry date. Failure to do so, will result in your account being disconnected. A connection charge of Lm 30 (Eur 69.88) would be incurred should you require to reactivate your ADSL account again.

So its our turn now , we HAVE to be refunded.

A.Mifsud

Dec 21st 2008, 01:34

I want a refund of the days i will not have the 8mbps i paid for, i cannot even access my e mails most of the times and cannot browse freely + i am loosing a lot of buisness.

If i would not pay my Go broadband bill, they would surely cut off my internet, so i think i have the right to claim at least a refund of what i would be paying for the days without internet. why should i pay for a service that i am not getting. If they would come to my bar and i would'nt give them the drink they paid for, they would complain! Plus if i would not respect the contract i have with them, i need to pay a heefty bill, so at the moment they are not respecting their part of the contract, so refund or compentation please. Consumer Rights.Plus GO should have invested before in another cable, not wait all these years to do another one. If you would have effecient management, you would make always an alternative to a service you provide and try to prevent a problem that could arise before the problem arises.

Daisy Pennock

Dec 21st 2008, 01:32

So all you cheapskate GO people are complaining!! You pays your money and you takes your choice in this life so stick with Rolls Royce Melita!! (please don't take me seriously, but at least we still have broadband...)

stephenborgcardona

Dec 21st 2008, 01:27

GO`s customer service is much better than that of Melita. I recently called Melita cable to complain about poor reception on all TV channels , after fifteen minutes waiting on hold, the rep told me there was something wrong with my TVs tuning. Two days later it was back to normal without any tuning being carried out , i am switching to GO now.

A. Demanuele

Dec 21st 2008, 01:06

Faults are expected either man made or natural storms , or just by use. But not to have a redundant connection its blasphemous,when its the most important issue to take care in IT.
Redundancy is inexistent in this country - supposedly to be a leader .The MCA should had imposed restrictions in its licenses - at LEAST ONE redundant connection should had been made available before issueing the licenses. This is the 2nd time this year we are suffering a cut , 1st time 1 whole day - we weren't refunded a cent , now this last 2nd failure , caused initial outages and now slow connections - we have to be compensated now from the date it started to when it ends.If you miss a day to pay the renewal you need to pay a fine ; below find an original extract from Go's email

IMPORTANT

It is very important that you renew your account before the expiry date. Failure to do so, will result in your account being disconnected. A connection charge of Lm 30 (Eur 69.88) would be incurred should you require to reactivate your ADSL account again.

Hello CONSUMER rights agencies ..........

Paul Borg

Dec 20th 2008, 22:56

I demand Compensation!!!!! I still paid the full rate to get a28kbps service instead of MY 8Mbps! I demand COMPENSATION as this is intollerable to us the consumers.

James Sultana

Dec 20th 2008, 21:32

Consider yourselves (myself) lucky .... if this was to happen in a couple of year`s time, we will be in pitch darkness at home, while the various Smart City, Pender Place, Tigne Point, etc will be taking most of the power from our powerstations.
This serves as an eye-opener to all those that beleive that with the €150 million wind farm and the €200 million power cable to "the rest of Europe" (which is simply a false statement since we will be only connected to Sicily and then we have to rely on Sicily`s connection to Italy, and Italy`s to mainland Europe) is the best solution for our future power needs. A country like ours, isolated from the rest of the world wants to rely on an underwater cable for ITS BASIC POWER REQUIRMENTS .... what if such cable was to suffer a damage similar to GO`s cable ???
Rather than trying to be greener than the greenest to please the EU friends, we should take this GO cable episode as a lesson and instead invest those €300plus millions in our own powerstation on our own mainland!

S Brincat

Dec 20th 2008, 21:19

Some comments here could earn their writers an honoris causa degree in economics. Some seem not tocare about the world around them but just about their little world: so much for web generation, connected, open minds. Some others say things like Go or whoever else should have laid more cables and earlier. Now press reports say that an undersea cable costs about 10M euros to lay and someone has to pay for that. The cost is in the end borne by those who consume the service and, unless these are prepared to pay for the cost of multiple cables with oodles of idle capacity in normal times just in case something like the event of this week happens, they just have to learn to live with what they have. I just think that there a few too many mollycoddled tfal tal-mama' who have little sense of economic realities and as a result come up with the most outrageous ideas. Sure, we are frustrated with the situation, but let us keep a sense of proportion and reality here. By the way didi anyone get compensated for the disruption during the transport strike earlier this year?

Chris Gatt

Dec 20th 2008, 21:04

The cables could have been cut by some ships afterall!

Look at this http://www.labnol.org/internet/favorites/the-ships-that-cut-the-undersea-internet-cables/2904/

ray Pace

Dec 20th 2008, 19:41

The Egyptian internet company facing same problems as GO, had not requested payment for a months subscription when faced with a similar problem last January..... read this article - http://www.ansa.it/opencms/export/site/notizie/rubriche/altrenotizie/visualizza_new.html_846352017.html.

Charles Muscat

Dec 20th 2008, 19:12

yes its not fair that they take the compensation from the go employees this could have happened to anyone . for example at the moment if the vodafone cable has gone down all of malta would have no internet. and go was unlucky that they had their cable damaged. Melita used to use the go cable too. and they had recently changed to vodafone. i think that go will give a compensation. so why take it with go employees they have nothing to do with this actually they are doing all they can to solve the problem. i hope that the problem is solved soon and i will still use go as an isp. since this could have happened to anyone even vodafone which would effect even melita

r pace

Dec 20th 2008, 19:00

Sending even a 200kb email is impossible - should we be thankful? How can we be called moaners. Accidents happen but this is a management by crisis. The second cable and maybe third should have been laid years ago and not now that the first problem arose a few months ago. Is there an alternative to cable - maybe Sattalite or Microwave links? Most GO customers do not use their bandwidth to download illegal dvd's as one correspondent alleges....fast internet is used for more purposes.

Tony Cassar

Dec 20th 2008, 18:51

@ A Zahra

Oh goodness... they must be exhausted... they configured a router...

What took them so long is probably the lack of communication that exists between these two companies which, historically, hate each other's guts...

Shawn

Dec 20th 2008, 18:37

To Mr.J.Mercieca

Mr. J. Mercieca I understand that you are angry, I'm a subscriber with GO like you and I have problems with Internet like you, but I was reading your comment and I was amazed how childish you are. You are acting like a child when demanding to have a compensation
necessary taken from the salaries of GO's employees. So respect the GO employees which are there working hard for us to have our service back. Please don't be selfish and grow up :)

Brian Doyle

Dec 20th 2008, 18:09

From the mca site:

'Go has informed the MCA that following the implementation of the contingency plan, and with collaboration with Vodafone, most services are being restored to normal based on the the capacity bandwidth provided by Vodafone.'

This is where the whitewash begins. The above is heavily misleading. The service is FAR from being normal. Web browsing may be faster than it was (although still massively slower than it should be) but anything outside of the browser port - eg webmail, pop3mail, online gaming etc is running at speeds of around 3k/sec. Please GO don't patronise us when we are quite clearly USING the internet at 2003 speeds whilst you are telling us we aren't!

S.Spagnol

Dec 20th 2008, 17:51

I don't think that GO should be blamed for the lack of service as they surely had no control over the incident. However, I believe that we should be get what we paid for (in advance) albeit not from employees' salaries, as someone suggested!

Jesmond Marshall

Dec 20th 2008, 17:48

I have been a loyal customer to Maltanet/Go Internet service for the past 10 years. I expected some common decency from Go, to at least send me an email which explains what is happening and how customers that are paying for a full service are going to be compensated when they are not getting the service they pay for. I know that emails are not a problem from Go side as today I got an email saying that my account is due for renewal. I am sorry to say that I don't see myself as a loyal customer if some form of compensation is not given.

I Alamango

Dec 20th 2008, 17:30

when i read such news. I smile alone and say 'it was great that 2 months ago i switched to Melita'
I used to pay for an 8MBPS connection and just receiving around 2MB for more that 8 months! that is around €8 a month extra in their pockets!!!

Complained and complained for a refund for NOTHING. No refund was ever given to me!!

Now with Melita im getting what I am paying for, and not only... Paying for 2MBPS connection and getting 4mbps!


guys do not grumble. Change internet Provider.

Andrew Cumbo

Dec 20th 2008, 16:10

I pay GO to have a good broadband service. No matter was the fault and no matter the excuses, Go must compensate all those make use of their internet services. At least GO shall extend the expiry of each customer with the exact time we have been without service.

This is what other companies in E.U. do for their customers.

Albert Micallef

Dec 20th 2008, 16:09

Dear John J Mercieca, im sorry to say but how can you ask GO to deduct from the employees wages so that they compensate you? It wasn't one of their employees who broke the cable and i believe they all have families to feed so how dare you take it against employees that have nothing to do with it, anzi they are working as fast as they can so our internet service is back

GO has the other cable being installed till the end of January if this happened then we wouldn't be in this situation. And it was done on the purpose for this not to happen but they were unlucky i guess.

Andrew Cumbo

Dec 20th 2008, 16:08

I pay GO to have a good broadband service. No matter was the fault and no matter the excuses, Go must compensate all those make use of their internet services. At least GO shall extend the expiry of each customer with the exact time we have been without service.

This is what other companies in E.U. do for their customers.

G.Grech

Dec 20th 2008, 16:08

@John J. Mercieca

I am baffled by your statement stating that such a major disruption affecting half of the globe is an excuse! I am also curious to know where you work. When any of your services/products do not satisfy me, I will demand for compensation that has to be deducted from your salary. I hope you won't mind since it seems that your service/product have never been affected due to unforseen circumstances.

R. Cassar

Dec 20th 2008, 16:07

@S. Pace

Mr. Pace do you work for GO by any chance?

The problem is that once GO is not offering the service it promised in the contract, the least it could do is give free subscription time to compensate for the poor service. As many have already pointed before if you do not pay GO on the day your subscription period ends they will disconnect your line immediately, so once they are not offering the service they promised they should apply the same rules to themselves and offer compensation in free subscription time for each day the service is degraded or not up to standard. Besides, everyone knows that the rates they charge us for an internet connection in Malta are the highest in Europe!

J Magro

Dec 20th 2008, 16:05

Pretty disgusting. Go were warned, knew what action they had to take, yet did not progress too much in 4 months.

Am expecting compensation. To think that I've recently "upgraded" my Go-service. What a joke!

C. Reiff

Dec 20th 2008, 16:04

So Im going to have to live with dial up internet for the rest of the cmas holidays even tho Im paying for 8mbps? _I_ _I_

Carmel Dimech

Dec 20th 2008, 15:45

I think it's fair enough that we get some refund now ,no internet for nearly a day,now slow connection...Go, take care of your cutomers or you'll loose them.

martin saliba

Dec 20th 2008, 15:43

To all the moaners and groaners.
First of all i would like to point out that i have no connection with GO whatsoever.
I'm paying for a 2 Mb connection and at present have a 518 connection. When i bought the service from GO DDT was 6GB now it is 25GB with no extra charge. 518 is more that enough for general browsing but a bit slow for downloading. What's the problem , instead of illegaly downloading go to your DVD store. Oops , i forgot ,most DVD shops rent illegal copies anyway so i'm told.

J. Mamo

Dec 20th 2008, 15:32

@Adrian.....

Consider yourself Lucky !!!!!!!!!!!!

I have a 28k connection when I am paying for 12MBPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ha niggennen!! :@

Mr Sammut

Dec 20th 2008, 15:29

Its true Malta should be served by more cables and even satellite links. But the GO company is working on getting multiple cables. GO will be finishing the instillation of the second cable in January. The cabling of the second cable has started a year a go so we are getting their. Melita/Onvol doesn't have their own cable (They are tarting to work on it). Vodafone is the other company that has a connection to Europe and the University trough I think a satellite link not sure on the university

R. Cassar

Dec 20th 2008, 15:20

Finally managed to access the Times.

I'm on the 12Mb service.
I understand that in times of contingency such as this speeds will go down.
But very limited access; if you can call it access is unacceptable.

MCA please take note...the contingency plan is inadequate.
On paper it may look nice but the system is far from adequately acceptable.

Today is Saturday...what will happen next Monday when businesses and government departments are in full swing?

A couple of hours ago told a GO's representative that the repair will take a week or two.
He said "Dan int qed tghidu"...well the answer is above.

If anyone has seen the Discovery documnetary Atlantic Guardian , one would immediately notice the complexity and time required using a specialised vessel with dynamic positioning, dredging the seabed in the approximate fault area with a special anchor and then lowering another special anchor to cut the cable. Then they dredge and cut the other side. Lift both ends one at a time and the complex surgical splicing and testing takes place.

Well let's wait and see.

A Zahra

Dec 20th 2008, 15:20

A thumbs up and well done to all engineers and technicians at Vodafone and at GO who worked tirelessly and incessantly for over 48 hours to re-establish connectivity for GO customers. It definitely speaks volumes about the technical capabilities , dedication and competency of Maltese engineers who delivered despite the great pressures in these circumstances.
That is that what makes our country really smart. And that is what the smart investor comes looking for in our country.

K Camilleri

Dec 20th 2008, 15:20

Everybody has the right to feel stressed and frustrated about this situation. I am subscibed to GO and I am not receiving full service. However this does not mean that I have to blame this on GO. None of the fauls were actually their fault. If you have a parked car and somebody rams into it, it is definatley not your fault. So (this is for Mr. Mercieca) what in earth could lead you to think to get one month of Free Internet paid from GO's employee's wages. We have the right to protest for one free month, but this is definatley not the fault of any GO employee. If anything, who cause the fault has to be charged. Apart from this, one has to learn from this situation and pay more attention when laying more cables.

Joanne Fsadni

Dec 20th 2008, 15:15

Yes - we have two cables - one (GO's) is down....not many alternatives considering MELITA used VODAFONE's cable. This was rather unfortunate and shows that having a second GO cable is a wise decision; Hope it will be up and RUNNING fast.

To all frustrated web users - can't you see that this is all around the MEDITRERRANEAN...several countries have degraded service - but at least we have enough to write to the TIMES :) Be happy and enoy your Christmas.

N S Pace

Dec 20th 2008, 14:53

@ John J Mercieca

No amount of excuse would satisfy me. I have an absolute right to clean air, all the time, whenever I want it. I shall not be denied that. You and your vehicle are in the way of that. I demand at least a new lung replacement and a free kidney, if necessary, taken from you or your children.

Dorothy Aquilin

Dec 20th 2008, 14:37

Utterly disgraceful! Days without internet and no apologies to customers. A similar incident occurred recently when customers were not informed about changes in the service and thus ended up with no internet for days!No apologies and no explanations from Go. We pay for internet connection in advance but this is the disservice we receive. Shame on you Go. We expect decent compensation for the days we have been deprived from the service, we lost alot of precious time and money since important work could not be carried out due to the lack of service, some work such as assignments have deadlines and no excuses from GO will compensate for the time lost. Get your act together and please treat customers with respect.

Maria Schembri

Dec 20th 2008, 14:35

@ John J. Mercieca
so if an earthquake happens and your house falls down, from whom are you going to demand compensation? MEPA? the contractor who built your house? For heaven's sake stop being childish!!

@ Brian Doyle
GO have invested a great deal of money on a new cable. This was already being put in place before last time's incident, and it should be in place within a couple of weeks as far as I know ... so it's just a question of being unfortunate and experiencing problems before the new cable was up and running.

Raymond Lotsary

Dec 20th 2008, 14:28

This is a joke, the service has not been restored to a usable state. How dare GO pretends that they have done a good job so far. We can only reach about 10% of websites and each one can take a minute to load one page. GO is a disgrace for not having implemented a real contingency plan after the last disaster in August. This incident, although being unforeseeable, should have been resolved within 24 hours max. We have lost tens of thousands of euro's in lost business. I would never encourage a company to move to Smart city under these 3rd world conditions. We are certainly moving our company to Melita cable, if not another country.

Christopher Farrugia

Dec 20th 2008, 14:27

Must we just rely solely on cable? Why not satellite?

Whatever the reasons, we're experiencing too many downturns with cable... and a solution has to be found.... quickly.

A.Sacco

Dec 20th 2008, 14:23

@ Mario Gauci et al: I have always received good customer service from GO. One cannot pin this mishap on the provider. They have provided contingency service to their clients, even if it is somewhat inferior to the normal browsing speed. They will soon be availing themselves of an alternative connection. So avoid labelling yourself as maltese gemgem.

C.Zammit

Dec 20th 2008, 14:22

Ok, so it's very easy for everyone to just sit back, and complain about the situation.

@Mr. John J. Mercieca
First of all, had this happened to a company where you worked, I am sure that you would be the first person to start complaining if the company decides to issue a free month taken out of your pay. The employees are not responsible for this so there is no need to take it out on them. That is nothing but ignorance.

Honestly, you all want them to be out there fixing the situation, and at the same time answering hundreds of e-mails of complaints. Make up your mind!

Comparing Go to any other ISP here in Malta, they are the best so far.
Accidents happen...surprise, surprise.

Thomas De Giorgio

Dec 20th 2008, 14:05

how many companies have 2 cables running at the time being? as far as i know only GO is laying the 2nd one... so it could have happened to any one!! its true we passed some hours without access to internet.. but i dont care, go was very helpful when i visited their outlet and bought their product. im still keeping my provider as they will have their 2nd cable soon and im safe :) hopefully!!


merry christmas y'all

Charlie

Dec 20th 2008, 14:01

I would like to thank go call centre cause altough they are receiving more calls than usual they still had to time to explain to me what I needed. Well Done Go.

Bruno Zahra

Dec 20th 2008, 14:00

DISGRACE !! Living in 2008 and depending heavily on IT and all its services and see what we get..... a shared data cable with a company that I had not opted to choose when I was looking for an internet service provider ! I am a customer who I am paying for services which I am not having right now ! And guess what !? "GO cable repairs to take 'days or weeks', Malta dependent on one cable" SHAME! I will call and write to get an extension of the service which I am not having presently. No matter what.... my customer rights have to be obliged.
By the way, though I do care about what is happening in the world around me but I do not care what other countries are stating about "customer understanding". I pay the money, I get the service. Those are the terms of reference!

Lawrence Cutajar

Dec 20th 2008, 13:58

GO bandwidth is very slow and in some cases not even operational. A fast remedy by GO is urgently required. GO should refund its subscribers for this situation. After all if a subscriber does not pay his connectivity fees in time the service is immediately suspended. All GO subscribers should unite together and demand their rights.

Franco Farrugia

Dec 20th 2008, 13:51

@John J Mercieca - Don't you think you are being somewhat too arrogant and aggressive? By the way, you mentioned 'I' and 'me' five times. Says something, doesn't it?

Ramon Casha

Dec 20th 2008, 13:19

This incident further illustrates the need to have contingency measures in place. More and more companies rely heavily on internet connectivity. Well done to Go and Vodafone for the agreement which allowed Go to recover quite rapidly, even if not at full capacity. We need to have more cables, passing along different routes between Malta and Sicily, to ensure that we don't have all the eggs in one basket.

Brian Doyle

Dec 20th 2008, 13:16

So go customers are now relying on one cable belonging to another company? How many cables of their own were they using before the incident? One? How many were they running on during the last incident some months ago? One? Can anyone spot the problem here.....?

Mario Gauci

Dec 20th 2008, 13:07

@s. pace

"So, count your blessings, and learn to live with such things.

Consumers have their sure rights when service is effected by companies' negligence. But in my opinion this is not the case."

I do not value much your stated opinion. Irrespective of whatever caused this fault, GO's obligations are contractual with its customers. Try opting out of GO's services if you took out one of their offers within two years! You will pay dearly. Read the small print my friend.

I for one have already written to GO via their website's contact details. And guess what? Surprise, surprise..... they have not bothered to answer. So much for customer care. Yes, I am demanding compensation until the full service is restored and we get the speeds to which we are paying for through our noses.

John J. Mercieca

Dec 20th 2008, 13:04

No amount of excuses will satisfy me. I have the right to fast internet, all the time, whenever i want it. I will not be denied that. Especially not over the holiday period. This is a disgraceful situation that needs to be fixed immediately and i demand at least a free month of compensation, if necessary taken from the salaries of GO's employees.

s. pace

Dec 20th 2008, 12:38

So even the richest countries (of smart cities calibre) in the world did not reroute immediately, and are suffering a degraded service after rerouting. But people still rant and rant........

The stark reality remains that anywhere in the world relying on the internet for some bandwidth consuming activities is risky. Fortunately contingency measures allow for basic emailing and acceptable browsing speeds in the circumstances.

The company in question says that another cable will soon be ready, which will make rerouting easier, faster and retain same level of service. But still, nothing is 100%. About 4 Xmases ago, a tsunami wiped out everything, and not even 100 cables can cater for this eventuality.
(if one goes by the seismic activity cause).


So, count your blessings, and learn to live with such things.

Consumers have their sure rights when service is effected by companies' negligence. But in my opinion this is not the case.

Adrian

Dec 20th 2008, 11:59

I am sorry but my internet service was restored with a 28k connection when I am paying for a 2MB.