There I was frustrated with the ISP and with my PC so I thought about trying another provider.  An ad I saw hanging from the LRT station on my way home suddenly came to mind.  It was a promo for PLDT Vibe’s 99 pesos Internet access.

I tried to reach PLDT’s customer service hotline 171 the Saturday before Palm Sunday but was only able to get to talk with a representative Holy Tuesday.  It’s not that I didn’t try hard enough, but their representatives were just too busy answering other calls but my call was important to them that I just had to try and call later.

After finally getting through to a rep after several attempts, I told her I wanted to subscribe to PLDT Vibe.  I was put on hold for a short while coz she had to check their records whether my account was current and that I had no overdue.  Doing that, she asked me for three possible usernames which I gave and she told me that she’ll pass it on to Tech support.  Since I badly needed to access the Web, I asked her if I could get the username and password within the day as it was still early, she said yes and that I just had to wait for their call. 

That was the phone call I was waiting for.  The day passed and there was no phone call.  Wednesday came and went still no phone call and I had to refrain from using the phone to connect to the Internet waiting for their call.  In fact Holy Week was over and I was still waiting for that all important phone call.

Meantime, I endured using the ISP which at 7 in the morning already had server problems.  I would be staring at the status bar at the bottom of the screen and when it goes halfway through the bar I was praying for it to go straight all the way to the end.  I guess my husband pitied me and felt I badly needed faster connection, he suggested I borrow a friend’s CPU which I did.  My friend’s PC has more powerful specs than mine and true enough; my PC had trouble performing the task of access.  But the ISP was not off the hook yet because despite the PCs capacity, it still had trouble connecting.  Remember, always busy.

The call from eventually came the following Tuesday.  Wow, I thought, is that what a day is for PLDT?  Anyway, that was beside the point, at least they called when they said they will.  So the rep tells me I can now access the Internet using their services and provided me with the username they approved from the list I gave and a lengthy password. 

Since I was leaving for a retreat the following day, Wednesday, I left the username and password with my husband who was nursing chicken pox then.  But lo and behold, he had trouble getting through the system due to an error in the username/password as indicated in the error message.  I waited for that username and password for a week and there was an error.  Not good, I said.

I was away for three days so I could only report the matter the following work week.  First thing Monday morning, at 8:05 I dialed 171 and got surprised that that early all there customer representatives were busy.  I was not about to spend my whole day trying to get in touch with a rep so I put it off for the next day, which I did.  After getting the automated message that I hang up, I was so relieved to hear a rep’s voice.  After telling her of my problem, she told me there was indeed a problem with the password.  Short of asking her how could there be a problem when they were the ones who assigned me the password in the first place, I held myself back.  She just gave me a new one, instead.

The new password worked but a new problem cropped up.  While I was putting this column to a close, I tried to connect again but encountered a busy line.  I made a second attempt and another error message appeared: error 721.  I gave it a third try, this time it was a different error: error 619.  Would the system make up its mind? Is it 721 or 619? Or both? The message advised I get in touch with the system provider.  Again??!!!  Will I ever see an end to these?

That would be worthy of another column.