Server from Hell....
C’mon Indo.net.....get your act together......!
There are many joys to living in Bali. Online access just doesn’t happen to be one of them. Until broad band becomes a practical reality for most of us (and roll on that good day....!) we are condemned to the patchy service provided by the local servers. And as for surfing the net, it’s such a pain that you really only go to someone’s website if you absolutely have to. It’s one of the few reasons I love Singapore.....
In my experience it’s a vicious circle that goes something like this. Driven beyond endurance by the appalling service of one server you finally decide you’ve had enough. Despite the massive inconvenience you decide to change. You ask around and hear that such and such a server is the flavour of the day. You call it and you can’t get on it, they’re full up. Last time around for me that was <centrin». You do your research and settle for the next best option, which in my case was <indo.net». A month or three later, Centrin rings up to tell you they can now accommodate you. But you are already signed up, you’ve communicated the new address to all your vast array of friends and associates, your name cards and all your stationary all now have the new address. So you decide to run with it and things actually go pretty well for a year maybe. A lot better than your last Server from Hell.....
After 12 months or so things progressively deteriorate. It takes longer and longer to log on, it becomes an irritant but endurable in the face of the inconvenience of change. And change to what? Then after 2 years things really go down hill fast. Not only does it take an age to go online but when you’re on there’s a 50 % chance you won’t receive incoming mail and a 70% chance you can’t send outgoing. Calls to the server don’t help much, all you can do is jump around changing the various access numbers they give you in the hope it helps. You are once again in the hands of the Server from Hell....
In extremis I am now reduced to sending most of my mail via Yahoo.com which I don’t like doing since I use it for other purposes and it’s a lengthy chore anyway (a lot better than hotmail.com by all accounts).
Given the convoluted politics and economics of the telecommunications industry in Indonesia and the vested interests involved I am sure we are all part of an evil and antiquated cycle. Maybe <Indonet.net » is just at it’s nadir and if I’m patient things’ll come around. I don’t know, all I can say is I am now at the stage that unless things improve radically I’m back to square one and on the move again....
Does anyone know the way out of this purgatory.....?
Yet, to be fair to Indonet, they may not be the only ones and to some extent are probably the victim of circumstances beyond their control. Some people I’ve spoken to don’t seem to be having the awful experience with them I’m having.
Broad Band for All.....?
Three years ago I was giving a short talk at a Rotarian lunch on antiaging and optimum health (what else?) and I was interested by what the next speaker after me, a sales executive from Telkoms, had to say. From what I could gather he was trying to sell the Rotarians on a 2-way broad band connection costing something like Rp.12 million a month for the service. Judging by the conversation on my table I don’t think they had a snowflakes....
About that time I was sucking up like mad to a diminutive likely lad from Sarf London, who promised to hook me up for a small fraction of that cost if I would just help him with some hotel contacts in the area. I did and he ran some cables into a number of hotels giving them a bunch of TV channels but that’s the last I ever heard of it. His company was tied up with Lippo and I guess even they didn’t have the clout to push it through.
Hope springs eternal, and now years later I’m on the track of another outfit who can apparently set you up with a satellite broad band connection for something like Rp3.0 million (if you can find people in close proximity to split the cost three ways) and about US$ 50.00 a month for normal useage. Considering that includes overseas telephone calls. Sounds pretty good to me and I’d like to think it could work.
Not so long ago you could hardly draw breath in South Korea without having a government permit to do so, that or paying the chaebols a princely sum for the privilege. Now when it comes to broad band they lead the world. Almost every South Korean owning a computer has it. They’re way ahead of the Japanese and the Europeans, and leave the Americans for dead. So where do you think that leaves us in this great Republic?
The Siamese Solution....
Still, a man can dream....
Look at Thailand. Like a few other ASEAN countries I could mention, not so long ago you couldn’t even hook up a telephone without having an army general for an in-law or parting with an arm and a leg. Now even the samlor drivers have mobile ‘phones and IDD charges are a fraction what they were. It’s amazing what a few up-and-coming entrepreneurs allied with the right technology can do, if they’ve got the right connections and can by-pass the dead hand of controlling bureaucracies and the greed of established vested interests. Look at their current Prime Minister. That’s how he got the money to make it to the top. Meantime the country prospered massively right along with the now-PM as a result. Good for him and lucky old Thailand I say.....
It is more or less accepted in most reasonably progressive countries that the more you can open up communications through technology and deregulation, not only do things become many times more efficient but enormous creativity and new wealth is created. Small businesses, an essential manifestation for any growing and healthy economy, not only start to appear but actually have room to prosper.
Communicate, Communicate.....
As the man with the rifle, a big hat and reflective shades said, “What we got here is a failure to......” I’m sure most of the powers-that-be in Indonesia would subscribe to the importance of efficient telecommunications, at least in theory, so it is a bit depressing when you consider that Indonesia (you can forget about meaningful broad band access anytime soon) probably has the most expensive international telephone charges in the world. Not something for a developing country to be proud of, especially if they wouldn’t mind grabbing their share of foreign investment. Communications, after all, must rate pretty high on the list of any corporate honcho considering office or plant location I’d have thought. Quite apart from any equal opportunity democratised graft and corruption they might conceivably have to contend with these autonomous days.
I’m pretty sure that Indonesia’s postal charges would be at the high end of the spectrum too. It costs me less than half the money to airmail a package by normal parcel post from Australia to Hong Kong than it does to send the same package here. And, it only takes 5 days to get there. It takes 3 to 6 weeks before you can go to the Post Office to collect it here. Still, at least it does eventually arrive, which is something. In Italy I gather about one third don’t.
I’ve also just had a refresher course in what a truly horrible and expensive business it is dealing with the international courier services here. I recently made the huge mistake of offering to be the postal address in Bali for a friend who wanted to bring in about $200 worth of goods for personal use. The stuff was Fedexed from Chicago and got here 48 hours later where they sat in customs. It was 4 days before anyone from Fedex bothered to contact me about it and there began a nightmare of paperwork and time wasted trying to sort out what was needed to spring the goods. Fedex was paid over $140.00 in the US to do the job, the Fedex Jakarta office demanded another $150.00 in tax/duty and handling charges on top and I still haven’t seen the goods. From start to finish the thing will have taken 10 days if I’m lucky, cost almost $300, one third more than the goods are worth, and about 12 hours of my time, not to mention wear and tear on my equanimity. That’ll teach me to do favours for people. Serves me right.
Don’cha just love those million $ ads tho’? You know, where the Fedex man performs miracles of logistics....?
If all this sounds as if I’ve had a bad week, it didn’t start out that way.....
Noli carborundum bastardae.....as an acquaintance with fractured Latin is fond of saying. Better yet, I shall go from this place to another place, take several deep breaths and smell the flowers.....
In Korea there is almost 100% broadband access. In Thailand even the samlor driver has a mobile ‘phone. These countries have prospered massively be freeing up their telecommunications. In Indonesia we have some of the highest IDD and postal charges in the world.
