After the Epic Fail that is Zain@Home, I decided to follow up the footsteps of fellow blogger (Yagoob) and several of my friends and sign up with Light Speed for their internet service.
I walked up to the stand in Bahrain Mall, with my ID card in one hand and a Batelco bill in the other. Chose the 512MB plan, paid BD 10 and walked away.
The application was very simple, very easy. The guy promised connection within 10 days (lets hope) and they said they will disconnect my current Batelco inet themselves and connect their internet the same day.
I will be getting an Orange box, which is kind of a wireless router with a socket for a regular phone. No longer will their internet be without limits for Lightspeed users, they have recently imposed a threshold. But it still seems fine, the 512 line gets you 16 GB of data. After which it simply reduces to half (unlike other carriers who give you a platry .. what? 64k?). Furthermore, I can upgrade (or downgrade) my packages for free anytime I want. So if you want the unlimited package, avoid the BD 30 connection fee, sign up with any other package for a month (For BD 10) then switch packages for free.
I will follow up on that application in this blog and keep you posted on how it transpiers.
14 comments:
I wish you all the luck, since I know a friend ranting, Google needs 3 seconds to load with his Lightspeed line ..
Sorry to disappoint you too because I had a very very bad experience with them but that was a long time ago, I don't know what is the situation right now. I wish you very good luck ;)
Good for you!
So far so good for me alhamdulillah!
Batelco's BD10 line was quite stable for me. With only 2 GB threshold I didn't do any downloading.
But now that I do want to download stuff again (like a human) I have to change. I'm hoping to have a nice experience as you Yacoub (or Yagoob. Make up your mind about the spelling!)
I have been hearing some good news about Light speed's connections lately, the bit streaming product looks to be working well, finally.
keep us posted.
I used to be a Lightspeed customer.
I hated the service, it was crap beyond belief.
Customer service over the phone was virtually non-existent, and as for technical support? There was none.
Had no choice but to go back to Batelco which i too am not a fan of to any degree.
Hope it works out for you!
Dear Mike,
I heard horror stories about Lightspeed in their early stages. However, the cries of anger to songs of praise after a while. People err but they can also mend, hence my interest.
Your bad experience with lightspeed will no way compare to the bad experience I had with Zain@home.
Is satellite connectivity an option here? Would be nice to cut out the middle man and bypass the country's petty infrastructure completely.
>Mike,
At the moment, Light speed relies on Batelco copper lines which can go up to 2MB. However, recent news says that Light speed is setting up their own network which -supposedly- should go up to 100 MB.
Patience. We Bahrainis are good at it.
100Mbps? I don't share your optimism as it's slightly unrealistic if you ask me.
It's been over FIVE years since the country "liberalized" its telecoms industry with the introduction of the TRA - and what fruits does it have to bare? 2 ADSL companies with a maximum transmission speed of 2Mbps.
I will eat my own hat the day anything substantial happens.
But until that day comes around, the country will continue to live with crippling broadband speeds at extortionate prices.
Well Mike,
That is the speed Lightspeed announced they can "potentially" reach. Rest assured you wont as the TRA will try to maintain a level playing field.
And the "Liberation" is slow yes. But I think it's natural seeing there is such a heavy juggernaut like Batelco there. Offers and services will not stray too far from what Batelco offers. If they move the rest moves accordingly.
I wish you luck ....
I read you experience with zain and i felt awful :)
For me i got connected with zain@home just after 2 days of subscription! and never experienced any sort of disconnection or speed change - always 200-240 KB per second :)
Maybe it's luck that's all!
I agree Rugal about this luck thing. I guess you were very lucky.
Today is the 27th of July. Lightspeed breached their promise to connect me within 10 days. I sure hope I don't go through the same story as Zain@home again.
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