[New Topic Created from Galahad's Reply.]
We have something similar here, and it's Telekom Srbija... At the begining, it was a government service, and they had monopolised the telecommunication service. Which by the way is crappy! They have poor links to world ISP's, our phone lines are still lousy, hell, there are still people that have analogue phone line! And they say "all phone lines are switched to digital"! Switched my...khm... backside
Dumb engineers - they have that too
When I asked can I fully use V.90 or V.92 protocols, their engineer looked at me, with very serious look on his face, like I was asking him if he would give me a milion €, and said "it's digital line"! I only smiled, and realized, they don't have a clue what I was talking about...Recently, they introduced ADSL service... Offcourse, only the capital has the option to use it, whereas, the rest of us, can only dream about it! But, it's not a nice dream. They provide backbone lines, for ISP's, and they offer the service themselves... BUT! They do not guarantee the bandwidth payed! So, I'll pay big cash for say 256k, but, I may get only 64k, depending on number of users on the local hub! Offcourse, complaining about anything here, has the same effect as with the Igara - no reply! If they answer, they say either "It's not in our jurisdiction" (this is my personal favourite, everyone uses this phrase, starting with politicians), "we will take a look at that", "please, send as that complaint in writing", and the list goes on..
Oh yeah, I almost forgot... When you sign a contract with them, to give you a phone line, there is a section, which clearly states, that the phone line will not be used for anything else, but transfer of voice communication. If that is not obeyed, they have every right to break the contract, without refund! What the hell?! It then appears that all of us using internet (provided by them, by the way!), are in breach of contract, and that it's only their good will, letting us use it. It's not unheard of, they terminated contracts with people, who complained too much... (now I sweared and screamed some
)The only thing they did right (and I thank, to whoever I need to thank), is they gave me credit to pay one outstandingly large telephone bill...
Speaking of which... If they notice you use your phone much, and have large bills, they like to attach some extra calls to your account... Like 041 (hot-lines, and other high cost lines, 0.2€/min, whereas, normal call is 0.004€ for 2 or 4 mins, depending on the time of day)... When you say "I didn't make this god damn call", all they say is "we're sorry, but it is in your phone records, maybe your children called it"... Most people back-off at this stage, scared or frustrated... Only, and ONLY after you have yelled your lungs out, and asked for the manager, and screamed some more at him, and threatened to sue them, they MIGHT consider to lower the bill (ususaly by 10 or 20 percent). Of course, if you ask to pay some ammount over the course of few months, that's OK...
Offcourse, the list goes on, and on, and on... Forever! Starting with september, they lost their monopoly, and other phone companies are allowed to come in... Oh, how I wait for that moment, to have T-Mobile, Vodafone, Orange, D2, anyone come here, and show those bastards how business is done...
Well... I feel a bit better now, that I have screamed out here
my blood pressure is way high now 
I guess, crappy service is a characteristic of big leading companies... And that's how, unfortunately, it will stay...
), but my phone line is an analog one. Speed? Well... It depends, during the evening, I can't even connect (VIA dialup, of course) to my ISP! If I hold my fingers crossed long enough, I just might establish a connection! (but usually before 5-6PM, or after midnight) Yahoo! Now, let's do some browsing: Open up 6 Internet Explorer windows, type in the address in every window separately, and click on "GO". The Connection Status icon in the system tray is blinking! Hooray! 1min later, one page is opened! (a few pics are missing, but it doesn't matter, right?) I find something that I may want to read and I open it in a new window, when I finish that, another page is opened! Yay! Now to open new windows from that one too! 10mins later, I have filled out my taskbar to the MAX and I am ready to disconnect! (are you wondering why? well, you needed to pay about 300CSD (din) to your ISP in order to buy "10 hours" of dial-up online time. That's why it's important to hang up as soon as possible!) Now, what about downloading? 1MB, 2MB? Yipe! Sounds big to me! It's going to take forever to download that, and probably my connection will "snap" right in the middle of my download! Because of all this crap, I said "enough is enough"! I need a digital subscriber line! So, I went out to get one! (sounds easy? well fasten your seatbelts ladies and gentlemen) I visited Telecom Serbia's office only when I needed to pay my monthly phone bill. Now, it's different... I'm asking for something! When I tried to ask anything about a digital telephone line, the "nice lady" simply "threw" me a piece of brown paper (VERY low quality, your toilet paper is better than this) that appeared to be a form! OK... Let's fill it out! The form asked me for the usual... Name, phone number etc. and last, but not least, a reason why I want a digital telephone line... Well, I'm going to be honest, I typed in "To get a better and more stable connection to the internet". When I brought back the filled-out form to the "nice lady", she asked me to pay a small processing fee... Great... I walked home and used my crappy dial-up connection again waiting for the day when my phone line will be able to handle a normal dial-up internet connection... One month later, I received an envelope that looks like it has been sealed by a retarded ape. I opened it up and started to read: "Dear sir, due to lack of technical coverage in your area, we are unfortunately unable to supply you with a digital subscriber line. However, you will be notified when we do."
