ASTRO MEASAT – ASS-TRO NIA-SAT

So they spent around RM1 billion to put a new satellite up there, and that’s supposedly a newer, more powerful one replacing the older ones and providing better services to ‘support the growing communications requirements’, blah blah blah…

What do I, as a paying customer, get out of it? FRUSTRATIONS!

Whenever it rains, even during drizzles, my TV screen will go cuckoo. It used to be like this only during thunder storms but now it’s almost impossible to watch any programs whenever it rains! One night a week ago, the screen went completely blank, only a yellow dot at the right top corner of the screen.

I called the Customer Service, and after instructed me to fiddle with the remote for several minutes to check on the signal strength, the voice at the other end concluded the diagnosis: “You don’t receive any signal. I will send a technician to check your satellite dish within 24 hours; but you must pay him RM50 service charge.’

Q: WHAT? I thought I read somewhere a Minister has said it’s wrong to charge the customers to rectify reception problems resulting from its migration to the Measat-3 satellite?

A: “That’s a different problem, sir. The problem now is something wrong at your side.” I hope she wasn’t referring to my head (or heart) and just how the heck was she so sure about that by me fiddling the remote?

Then miracle happened. The signal magically came back to life the following day; my TV reception was loud and clear! But it didn’t keep that way happily ever after… I still have to struggle with the interrupted transmissions whenever it starts to rain.

And tonight it happened again! BLANK SCREEN. This time I got a Customer Service Officer who couldn’t speak English, “Ini biasa, memang macam tu bila ada awan blocking. Measat 3 tu untuk extra channel saja, tapi kalau ada awan pun kena tunggu juga.”

So that’s how Malaysia’s fair share of bold and far-sighted entrepreneurs make money?

SPECIALIS REVELIO!!!


-HS