Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Maxis, Celcom and Digi
Malaysia has these three major cell-phone providers. Granted, they all have their strengths and weaknesses. But I'll try to avoid mentioning it now, 'cause what I really wanted is to talk about the cell providers and their direct relation with my relationship with my Princess.As you all may know, my official line is Celcom. I never shut it off, although I know that there'll be nobody calling over this line. This is because most of the people use Maxis as their preferred line. And they ask me, "why don't you use Maxis?" And I hate explaining to them, and I definitely hate explaining it over here.
Then there's Digi. Oh, Digi. yes, I had a digi line once. It's an okay service when I was in SA, but it stinks when I'm in Kangar. Frankly, Digi has the best rates of all three, but when it comes to service... Uh, next.
Maxis by far is 'the' cell provider. With its consumer base of over 7 million, it's supposed to be the best. And frankly, I find Hotlink is the best prepaid, but the rates are somewhat disappointing.
If we were in a idealistic world, I'd say that we would have a cell service that has good rates like Digi, excellent coverage like celcom, and good service like maxis. A fool's paradise, eh?
What does all this have to do with my relation ship with my Princess? Well, as we are separated by that shitty South China Sea, our only connection is through the phone. Of course, an easy way for her to keep in contact is through the use of phonecards and phonebooths. But as she can't leave the bedside too long, the only way is by cellphone.
So i bought her a Maxis simcard, as do I. Why not Digi? Why not Celcom? She said that celcom sucks in Sabah. Well, okay then. As for Digi, it sucks in Kangar. Now that we have two cell services that cancel out each other, all that's left is Maxis. It doesn't suck at both places. That's good to know.
And she got herself a second phone too. Granted, it's used, but hey. At least it doesn't intrude on the Digi phone. And that digi phone is her official phone. (Two people who love each other but have different official provider?! Gila! That's why I bought the two maxis lines, so it's our direct hotline to each other.)
By the looks of it, it seems that we're okay, kan? Maxis is okay over here, it's okay over there. Both of us have a secondary phone. Problem solved, kan? We can leave these two lovebirds to do their thang, right?
Not.
It turns out that her secondary phone has a slight problem, what she calls a "line drop." The signal will automatically go away from her phone. And to get it back, she has to switch it off and on again. This would be okay if we're SMSing, as the system is asynchronous (thank God for that). But that slight problem turns to %&#$&@! when I try to call her.
The phone will dutifully kill the call when we're well into a conversation. And that sucks. It's very stressful to know that: 1) your call will be cut off anytime, and 2) it gets cut off when you're well deep into your conversation. The longest conversation I had was 8 minutes before the line finally cut off, and that was a fluke. Usually it's in the range of two minutes before we got rudely cut off. And frankly, when you're in love, single-digit minutes ain't gonna cut it. Sigh.
At least I'm okay with SMS. Although it can't replace my voice, but at least I can communicate without the stress. And I'm very impressed with Maxis. If it weren't for the phone's fault, I'd talk to her all the time.
Now that Maxis' line is kinda shitty by the fault of phone, the next thing is by her Digi phone. But I'd rather die than call to her digi line from a non-digi line. Another one of the idealistic dreams is that we have cheap rates for between-services call. But noo...
Now i'm thinking of buying a digi simcard again. the first card, i technically threw away, but my princess asked me to hand it over to her. I did, and now it's in her posession. So if I buy another digi card, I will face low call rates, but with annoying service problems over here.
Then there's the unexpected challenger. The Landline. I could call her using my house phone, or she could call me by using the phonebooth. As stated earlier, she cannot leave the bedside for too long, and there's no bleeping phone booth in a hospital ward. As for me, well, it's the bills...
The landline is a good alternative, but it has its weaknesses too. Glaringly big weakness at that. Hell, all of them has weaknesses and strengths. And all of them are meant for one thing: to prevent us from actually having a good communication. Bleep you.
Thank God our love is strong. We don't need no frickin' phones to know that.
RLC.
I will still love DiGi until the end of time. :p