Indonesian telco and handset manufacturer Smartfren is in hot water right now as there are a huge number of complaints being thrown onto the company’s Facebook page about the prolonged internet connection errors hitting users for the past couple of weeks. How big is the problem? There were about 3,200 complaints posted on the Smartfren’s Facebook post on Friday alone. Plus there are around 300 comments for each Smartfren post in the last week which mostly are complaints about the company’s sporadic mobile modem and CDMA internet services.
The customers seem pretty pissed off as they are suggesting the company to change its name from Smartfren to Smartpret (a combination of “Smartfren” and Indonesian word “kampret” which means “schucks”), and to change the company’s tagline from “I hate slow” to “I hate fast.” A lot of the customers complain that they haven’t been able to use their topped up internet credits for quite some time, and some of them they can’t even open Google with their crippled connections.
This problem is being faced by a lot of Indonesians. During the Smarfren Andromax-u handset launch in February, deputy CEO Djoko Tata Ibrahim said that 65 percent of the company’s revenue comes from its data sales. He said that they had around 11 million customers at the end of 2012.
In Smartfren’s defense, a few customers mentioned how the provider’s internet service was very reliable in the past, but it hasn’t been as stable and fast as it used to be. A lot of them suggest the company should focus on improving its infrastructure rather than spending so much on marketing. At this time, I was not able to get hold of any Smartfren’s customer service via phone.
A Smartfren representative told me via email that they are now fixing the connection problems, but they still can’t estimate when exactly they’ll be solved. The company is also adding more bandwidth to its infrastructure to cope with customer growth.
Compensation?
It’s not clear if Smartfren will offer compensation to its customers because of this prolonged issue. These days, Smartfren and other local telcos must be more wary about their services and advertisements because the Indonesian ICT ministry is now taking a closer look at what exactly they are promising – and actually delivering. Smartfren’s current predicament totally doesn’t match with its “I hate slow” motto, and many are feeling ripped off for not getting a reliable internet connection for two straight weeks, and possibly longer.
The last time Blackberry’s BBM service went haywire, the Indonesian government could only give the Canada-based company a warning. Smartfren’s problem could potentially go for over half a month. Will the government do something about it?
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