WiMax and the decline of Dialog

Update 15-11-2007: please see Faith (Partialy) Restored in Dialog and Faith Restored in Dialog

Dialog Telekom once Sri Lanka's primier Telco is now in slow and stead decline. I have commented about this before but even I didn't realise how bad things have become until I had opportunity to use their WiMax services.

It all started in early August when a salesman at Dialog Broadband contacted one of the companies that I provide consulting for. They offered WiMax connectivity. The client happens to be an important corporate customer of Dialog Telekom so you might expect good service but as I soon found out it wasn't to be.

Their letter said they are using Alvarian products for last mile access. So naturally I asked them what the product was. Getting an answer to that question was like pulling teeth. I finally got an answer about a month later. But the model they referred to wasn't listed on the Alvarian site. After further clarifications I finally found the correct information and told them to provide us with a connection. That took nearly another six weeks!

They wanted copies of the company registration, Form 48 (certified directories list), letter of authorizaion the only thing they didn't ask was how many fillings I have in my teeth. Even the notorious bureaucrats in Sri Lankan government departments will not ask you for so much of paper work.

Even then the connection they provided was the wrong package. One of the packages on the offer letter was named Pro + which boasted of a 2Mbps speed and a static IP. It costs Rs 10,000 per month. There was another package named Pro that was Rs 5,000 cheaper but came with out the static IP.

But these were not the packages that we got. They connected us with another package with had only 1Mbps of download bandwidth. They fixed it exactly one week later (after numerous mails and a phone call).

So now we have a static IP and supposedly can download at 2Mbps but they still haven't created a reverse DNS entry for us. In frustration I sent an email to Dr Hans Wijayasuriya their CEO. Dr Hans is known to be a man of action and many consider him to be the best of the Sri Lankan CEO. He sent me a prompt reply thanking me for my candid feedback. But it doesn't look like he has taken any action yet.