Orange-Telkom's 'service'....

Since last Saturday, I could not go online suddenly using the Orange live-box, for some reason best known to it and my computer. So, I started calling all the numbers that I possess for help, but, nobody was answering their phones for some reason.

Eventually, I got through to Mr. Njenga from the town office who told me that he was off and not in his office, but, if I smsed him my 'bb' number, etc., he would try and help me. I could not get the helpline number '121' from my wireless phone and have subsequently discovered that I can only dial this number from my 'landline'. Nobody can explain to me why this is, so.

Coming back to my predicament of not being able to go online was suddenly solved soon after I sent Mr. Njenga the required numbers. Thinking that my problem had been solved, I merrily went on with my work and ignored the ref. number, 57900, that I was sent via sms by Mr. Njenga.

On Sunday my problems started again. But, earlier in the day, we had an outage and when a guy from the Nairobi office called to help me with the connection, I was not only not at home but, the power was also out. He promised to call me again between 3.00 pm and 4.00 pm. But, this being Kenya, where hardly anybody keeps their word, he did not call at all.

On Monday, I tried connecting, again, to no avail. Again, I had a truly difficult time getting anybody in the local Orange offices to pick up their phones. In desperation I called Nairobi and somebody answered but, I gathered from their numerous responses that they did not have the foggiest idea about any technical issues regarding their live-box.

Finally, I tried calling that 121 number from my landline where an computer responded and eventually got through to a human. She told me that my earlier reference number had been cancelled and so she gave me another one - 58098 - and that somebody from the Mombasa office would contact me shortly.

Well, nobody did and I had to make further numerous calls to the 121 number and told to wait an interminable time by the computer voice, before I would finally get through to a human who would tell me to keep waiting for a local feedback since their technicians were defeated in trying to solve the problem from their computers. It seemed that somebody would have to come to my place to deal with the problem. And since it was past 5.00 pm it was too late for anybody to show up, yesterday.

Now, since I'd been complaining about the connection since Saturday, one would imagine that Orange would not have such a lackadaisical attitude, but, I keep forgetting that we live in a banana republic where none of these 'officials' have any respect for time or keeping their word or thinking of calling in the event they are held up or can't make it.

Today, having got fed up of the computer voice telling me that it would take more than 5 minutes before a human would come on the line, I decided to go and do my urgent shopping all the way at Nakumatt Nyali where the Orange offices are and see them, too.

There I was assured that these techies were around the Nyali area and would come and fix my connection before leaving to go into town. Well, they finally did in the afternoon when I got back home. But, now, everytime we have an outage and the power comes back, I get problems with going online till I reboot my computer and disconnect/reconnect the live-box to get back on.

Before this happened on Saturday (I don't know why), everytime we had an outage and the power came back on (I have a Sollatek device), I never had to reboot, etc., and I could continue with my work. Now, suddenly, I have this added time consuming one. Can somebody explain this and help me sort it out, please? Also, do I get a rebate for this?