Viva Le Tricheur! Cheating Reptiles
Viva Viva Viva, they need bringing to heel and NOW! For those far afield, Viva is an arm of the Saudi Telecomms Company operating in Bahrain and around the Gulf. In 2018, Viva purchased a smaller 4G Internet provider by the name of Mena Telecoms, which was previously owned by Kuwait Finance House. Having been a very loyal customer of Mena since its inception more than 15 years ago, the real troubles began when Viva took over. It is a bit like the Hong Kong-China issue, whereby Mena’s independence is being/has been eroded away.
We as a family, company whatever, DO NOT WANT A VIVA subscription, In fact we do not want anything to do with VIVA, but we were forced into it due to ‘Take Over Action’. To my knowledge, nobody, not a single subscriber was offered or indeed challenged Viva to opt out of an existing contract if they chose, for whatever reason, but mainly because they did NOT want to be associated with Viva. Well I did! I was however reminded that the contract is still with Mena, albeit controlled by Viva. Viva will continue to meddle and niggle until the end of those contracts and no doubt eventually decide not to allow anyone to renew a Mena package, instead require customers to switch to a more expensive Viva package. It is not rocket science to assume that Viva’s ultimate goal is to wipe anything related to the name Mena off the face of the earth. After all, the KLM/Air France link up is tenuous to say the least and for Air France to survive, it will surely have to become less French. The psychology of Viva now is really that already. They certainly do give the impression that Mena ‘doesn’t exist’ already.
Furthermore, Viva’s behaviour was predicted many moons ago, in these very columns and blogs on Facebook.
In this post it is Viva who bear the brunt of this hideous fiasco which is allowed to persist in Bahrain.
Once Viva acquired Mena Telecom, it was suspected that the latter’s service will suffer, whereby there might be covert activity to hamper Mena’s access or indeed steal array positioning to better Viva coverage and hamper the Mena signal further. All designed to frustrate Mena customers. Already those who live by the sea, such as the Amwaj island, suffer backside arrays simply because Viva prefer to point them at more dense areas inland. The service in this area now begs the dustbin it is so patchy. This very activity was confirmed by an insider, who is contracted to install and maintain arrays. His words were; “Yes of course we do that, it is our prerogative and you should mind your own business”. Charming Indian fellow at that.
What was not expected was the speed at which the degradation materialized. Within the first week, Mena signal strength degraded. Many times, the Internet went off altogether. The engineers apologized and put it down to network upgrades and that all would be better soon. It wasn’t! Slowly but surely, the network has degraded to the extent that now, it is off more than it is on and that means up to 4 or 5 times a minute sometimes. Not all of that is deliberate with some outside antennas being the new Huawei omni directional device which simply drop out 4 or 5 times a minute sometimes, as they hunt for stronger (or weaker) frequencies. One cannot imagine how bad it is for an internal receiver. (More below).
It is also suspected that with the advent of 5G, within one year, we will see select customer areas have their 4G network deliberately degraded, just as Zain and Viva did with 3G. Batelco did not do this as far as I am aware. No proof is forthcoming, there is no Wikileaks in Bahrain.
For many months now, on making endless calls and registering complaints about this extremely poor service, tickets numbers are ‘deliberately’ not shared by SMS with customers it would seem. This way the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority (TRA) has no evidence when presented with complaints. Not that they do much or appear so customer sympathetic anyway.
After yet one more call to the Mena agent, advising that I was about to cut the line permanently as I had heard nothing for over 1 week, today: 22nd August 2019, a Viva rep. called. Normally we deal with Mena and prefer, because the Viva guys always seem to have an excuse or some edge and never appear to be quite halal. We were not disappointed. The rep’s rapport’ was straight forward: “We will not fix your system unless you sign a new contract”. The end, Amen! Well, don’t beat about the bush there Viva, say it like it is and get to the point. They want to hold you to ransom and at their mercy for another 2 years. It was a recorded call too. Blatant to say the least….. Can you believe it?!? On top of that, it is highly unlikely that Viva will indeed improve the ‘Mena’ reception, again cajoling and haranguing one to change to the more costly Viva. One imagines that the agent’s statement is deemed a ‘threat’ or that if Viva are allowed to do this, it is indeed illegal, but who is going to challenge them?
Oh what a lovely way to induce loyalty with its customers. In the house, we are still on contract until November, bills always paid on time, not much animosity. Viva on the other hand are obsessed with contracts and manipulation, it drives them with venom should anyone dare to challenge their ethics. Worse than those childish Europeans who now throw tantrums for the British Brexit. Fear Viva, fear them muchly for they will imply you are a low-life cheat trying to do ‘THEM’ out of a 2 year commitment should any issues arise. Trigger happy to impose travel bans too for as little as Seven Dinars, a monthly subscription fee. That too cannot be legal, but somehow they get around it with nothing less that a phone call one assumes.
For a while at its inception, Viva took the nation by storm, boasting the ‘Fastest 4G Internet’. Because they have a fibre light pipe linking Bahrain, straight out through Saudi, so their statement was somewhat true! But now it’s just BS. Others had to use either Batelco’s minuscule gateway or struggle with satellites and shared underwater community facilities. In fact, they still do, but clearing, downlink forwarding and distribution has improved from the Gulf generally and we can almost watch an HD Youtube video now without it stalling, except at weekends and late at night.
We speak here of Home Broadband, but of course mobile coverage is almost one and the same. In this area, Mena has/had the strongest reach with the others nowhere near as desirable or optimal. Fibre is being rolled out, but the areas are extremely selective and one is left wondering if politics or religion doesn’t play a large part in which areas get what. In particular the Northern new development areas should have had cables laid when it was just sand a little over 3 years ago. But no, deemed too expensive for Bahrain Telecommunications (Batelco). 10 years of asking, 10 years of ignoring. Now it will be much more expensive to install cable since the area is now built up and has roads, God Bless! Good planning there then Batelco. Even so, when the country is covered in fibre, there is ONLY ONE company offering a Gateway at the end of it…. Sing along now; “Oh chokey chokey chokey. Although it is thought that at least one other company has a licence to lay it as a result of other take overs. But…..why would they bother though and go to all that expense? Batelco are forced to share their cables with all other companies.
There are other entities in Bahrain which could offer super fast MPLS gateway facilities (Multiprotocol Label Switching) to the nation, out to say London or Europe, bypassing the Gulf bottleneck, where IP protocol rejoins the World Wide Web and extremely efficiently at that, but…. and there always is a ‘but’, in Bahrain…. It is highly unlikely for the time being that a wide spread commercial licence will be re-issued under the current government mandate. Tch Tch! Telecoms is keenly watched by the authorities for what they bring in or more to the point; push out! Watched they may be, but only from a current affairs point of view. They are not at all watched for their modus operandi from a customer’s point of view.
In this story, it is Viva who bear the brunt of this hideous fiasco which is allowed to persist in Bahrain. Zain, used to get a very rough ride, but they are pussy cats by comparison these days. Indeed, the corporate psyche and structure between Zain and Viva is completely different, as again it is between those companies and Batelco. Batelco is still the sweetest by far and quite possibly the most efficient by far, not to mention the most approachable in general.
Having experienced Viva’s Marketing and PR personnel in the past, their cocky, dismissive superiority is more than evident, and no doubt reflects the attitude across the entire company. Obviously, so cocky they probably don’t have a department monitoring negative press and even if they do, nobody appears to care. Already it is now over 3 years and we have another on going dispute which Viva cannot win since their own lawyers dismissed the case as ludicrous, but still we get billed electronically 3 or 4 times a day sometimes. Nobody not a single person in any department was concerned or able or willing to deal with our complaint, other than the ‘Call out the Dogs’ department buried somewhere deep in accounts. The fact that we had no service or no device was totally irrelevant.
After contacting the TRA and eventually in seething desperation, sitting in the VIVA building, a management representative nonchalantly descended to see us, bored out of her brain listening to our woes. Albeit a lovely girl, she informed us that she would go back upstairs to ask Management once more, but she knew the outcome; ‘So many people try and cheat us, they sign for a package for 1 or 2 years and then stop paying after a month or so’. She happily suggests we are among those deviants. Is anyone surprised customers fail to pay when Viva fail to offer what is advertised.
The young lady returned very shortly after and informed us that there was nothing we could do as she reiterated; we are considered ‘cheaters’, we must pay 1 year’s subscription despite us having not a single microwave byte over the house, or indeed a device to receive it. In fact, Viva made ‘us’ take the device back to their office the first day because it did not work. They should have collected it. There it stayed and there is where it all began. They already made $200 advance out of us for absolutely nothing. If in Europe, the States or UK, a lawyer would have a field day suing their ass for creating unnecessary stress and trauma threatening court action and sending the hit squad in, in the form of NCS (debt collecting agency) which they do. Incidentally, NCS know no manners and go straight for the jugular without trial. It has certainly raised my blood pressure and perhaps I could claim that it was Viva who stressed me so much I had to have heart surgery during Ramadan in 2017.
5G now, but let’s face it, the three main mobile providers and one Internet provider (The rest share), never got their act together with 3G, never mind 4G. It is not much short of a joke really and don’t hold your breath, 5G will be worse.
It is 2019 and in some areas of this tiny Island of Bahrain, smaller than the Isle of White, these telecom companies present a system not fit for purpose. Shocking, when one can pretty much visit anywhere in Bangladesh and 4G coverage is superb, yet it is referred to as a 3rd World Country and least developed (although it has just risen above that label in 2019).
The blue light means no signal and this flashes as least 3 times each minute and sometimes stays alight for 10-15 seconds. All 3 lights should be yellow/green.
Viva’s new Huawei omni- directional receivers, designed to roam the various frequencies within the cell to eliminate drop-outs, actually cause them. These are not well thought out for Bahrain, where there are tower restrictions. Hence every few seconds, your receiver will hunt and rather than sum, they appear to subtract, leaving the user with no signal.
No problem if you are just browsing, but if on a P2P or watching Television, your signal stalls, often as many as 3 or 4 times within a minute as mentioned. As we approach 2020, this is shameful for a so-called developed nation.
Besides, anything Huawei, is mere cheap plastic all singing – all dancing temporary toys as everything Chinese device generally is. More expensive Ericsson networks built like tanks will surpass anything Chinese.
There must be enough discontented folk/customers to raise an army, all meandering around Bahrain, thoroughly sick to death of this Viva’s and other telecom companies constant underhand modus operandi. Where do they get this attitude from? Viva’s Saudi nemesis and mentors no doubt. Elsewhere in the civilized world, they would be taken to task by the courts, never mind a barrage of Social Media fire which the main stream media will pick up. Unfortunately Bahrain has NO MAIN STREAM MEDIA of any worth.
Imagine if we all descended on Viva’s door step at the same time demanding retribution, the management would just sit on the top floors and throw contents of piss pots over us. Their arrogance is astounding.
Depressed customers, feeling totally helpless as no recourse is available to them, while incredibly arrogant Viva continue to run rough shod and manipulate an extremely passive nation which allows them to do EXACTLY as they please. Furthermore, you are on your own buddy, as the nation quivers with reluctance to challenge.
The few that tolerate my rants will know that I have maintained that the Viva Modus Operandi at management level is nothing short of scam low-life Time-Share mentality. Customers are merely an inconvenience for this privileged conglomerate. No shame! Viva etiquette is now well established among their employees, who no doubt need the job, so go with the flow, fearing any remote sympathy for customers detected will probably be met with termination. There is absolutely Sweet F.A. we as the people, the customers, the payers can do about it! I can blog as much as I like. The anti Viva Facebook pages are full of it, but bad PR seems irrelevant to them.
Of course, many Middle Eastern companies coddle their indifference, never fearing any backlash or comeuppance. It is a Bahrain trait and mindset, whereby lip service is paid to the nation, but individually little faith or acceptance of knowledge or qualification is considered, so who is to argue and we are all friends anyway. But the underlying under estimation is there. Hence Bahraini prefer to be treated medically outside of Bahrain for example, yet there are ‘some’ perfectly good and very talented doctors here. One must assume the telecom companies think the same about their customers. Their tricks and testy behaviour never ends. This latest escapade is yet one more predictable element. ‘Ah, nobody qualified to challenge us, so forget it’ they think! Well I am qualified in the field and I will challenge in anyway that I can. I am also an accredited journalist, recognized by the government of Bahrain. Among other things, new laws state clearly that journalists now have freedom and cannot be prosecuted for naming and shaming when holes have been dug. One hopes that more will highlight now that they are not receiving any advertising revenue this days, which always prevented any critique.
iPhone5 TIMES AND YOUR PHONE IS SWITCHED OFF – REVISITED!
Don’t tell me there is no ‘Illuminati’ (no need to buy the book) and Apple don’t attend those decadent parties of extreme deviance. Wondering about the ‘apple’ symbol, I am now very suspicious of the significance within the society.
Nobody fixed the iPhone5 ‘no network’ issue. The loss of passwords when coming in and out of known wifi haunts. The low battery retention or the heat and the sudden demise altogether after just a month or so. Apple lost their credibility for many over this, but they will get away with it. After all, some iPhone5 models were working ok-ish, depending on the batch. Nobody cared and no main stream media picked up the story of Apple’s woes with it and their silence over the issue. Sending back as many as 8 million faulty devices to Taiwan in May 2013, is a major Toyota size recall, but NO! Not a blink from anywhere. ‘Wait for the IOS7 they say, all will be fixed. Not only 7 but a revamped iPhone5 S. Never mind that most of us forked out over 500 quid for a heap of trash. Let us see what the 64 bit S brings, Or should that be; ‘Let us pray that it is improved’.
I love the iPhone, but maybe Apple or the Chinese tried to be a little too clever. As a comms engineer in my past life, I have a gut feeling that the iPhone5 woes are hardware rather than software. Not that I could open a mobile phone these days and figure out what is going on inside, but the principles have to be the same. GPRS, EDGE, 3G, 4G and so on, all accommodated on the one device. All different waves lengths and many different algorithms to deal with from an antenna reception point of view. Yes it could well have been software, whereby in the switching of wavelength requirements, something was not right. However, and logically, that does not explain why some iPhone5 releases were ok, or seemed to be ok. (People are so fickle. If you call some of those OK phones, you might still get the ‘This phone is switched off’ response and everyone just blames the network).
I got so fed up with my iPhone 5 and my provider Zain, doing nothing about it, simply because they could not, it was out of their hands. Within 6 weeks of owning the phone, it died. It would not charge and the existing charged withered away like a rotting corps. What could Zain do? No replacement other than change your iPhone for another smart phone of a different type. This is exactly what I did. I was advised by my buddies in Zain to go for the Samsung Galaxy S4, which I did. I have had the stunning Dell Streak for a couple of years now, so I know the Android operating system enough to find my way around a bit. I also have an earlier Samsung Galaxy of the small type. Slowly I was getting used to the S4, but more importantly, I NEVER lost a single call with this phone, so please please please all you Zain doubters out there, stop blaming the network for this particular issue – it is the iPhone 5. Not that the network itself is by any means perfect, as we all know it aint for all mobile providers. Viva Bahrain have exactly the same iPhone 5 problems as no doubt do hundreds of other providers around the world. All of which preferred to keep their mouths shut. The marketing departments absolutely shit scared to mention any issues if the other carrier didn’t. Very sad, very sad indeed.
So where was I? Oh yes; I say that I ‘was’ getting used to my S4, when my UK provider EE/T Mobile, decided to give me the new Sony Experia T. There is something about ‘love at first fight’ with it. Fight I did, until I got it working on net, sending data. It required a few reboots to hold the settings, but now all seems tickety-boo and some rather sensible ergonomic advantages over the Samsung S4. Let’s see how I get on with it.
Meantime, I did try to buy an iPhone5 S while in the UK this week (Sept 2013) but that proved difficult and the price was well out of order. All readers of this blog would dearly love to know if the iPhone5 S has been fixed. Post please.
BEWARE OF GEEKS BEARING GIFTS – SEASON 1
UDATE 3: 24th NOV. 2012: Zain Bahrain investigated deeper and responded to my requests to check the IMEI numbers of the erroneous calls made and the bogus SMS we supposedly received and responded to. Bingo! Not us. A mighty BIG thanks to Ruzaina and indeed Khalifa who with great pains, sifted through the mess and removed all charges. That is not the end of it though, they are still determined to get to the bottom of this. Bahrain Telecommunications (Batelco) supposedly investigated for a few minutes and came to the conclusion that I/we had made the calls and responded to the the SMS thus closed the case. Lightspeed removed the charge after a huge battle, but are still convinced I/we made the calls or sent the SMS. AMEN…..or maybe not. Read the story below.
UDATE 2: 4th NOV. 2012: Zain Bahrain just confirmed – so far 2 of my mobile numbers fraudulently charged. A total of 95 scam SMS supposedly received and replied to during the last month, plus calls to Madagascar, which defeats Lightspeed’s assessment that I was physically responsible for the calls. (See below Scam 1). Total value of the theft now amounts to not far short of BD 200 (Over US$ 500) This is is so serious now, it is a war.
Geek warning! (See update 1: 03 Nov 2012 below). Today’s blog is about you and me getting fleeced daily by criminals using perfectly legitimate telecommunication channels. For good measure, I’ll throw in Jimmy Saville’s name – the Briish disc jockey who is thankfully being posthumously … um…. buried for fixing his jimmy where he shouldn’t have. A distasteful man who I well described, if not warned about 40 odd years ago. Owz abaht that then..? Unlike a Pakistani marriage, the two subjects are not related. I know, I normally rattle on about media corruption or corruption in the media and the occasional telecom rant, but bear in mind telecommunications is everything media, it carries media, it is a medium, so in this case, the two subject are related.
To get your hackles up and battle dress on, let me inform you that you and me are paying through the nose for thin air and legally being ripped off big time by crooks manipulating our everyday communication systems. My household (IP based) telephone has been hacked with someone making extraneous calls and nobody wants to admit it. It never rains, it pours and our mobiles have been raped too.
Here’s a scenario; you’ve just received a massive phone bill demanding you pay a stupid amount above what you normally pay per month, or you’ve just topped up your credit on a prepaid system only to find
FINALLY FOR THE GEEKS – SEASON 2
As I have said before; calling granny on your phone is very different these days to the good old times of waiting for little mechanical or digital relays to physically connect your calls on hard lines. Nowadays, what the geeks call 4G is not only different-to-air radio frequencies, but a virtual matrix and done by mirrors in the ether and we are nothing but little IP addresses (INTERNET PROTOCOL); which is why you can move a thousand miles away from your roots and still take your old loved and cherished telephone number with you – or indeed change providers/operators – or if they would let you and we had suitable phones, send text messages to a land-line handset or box (which nobody does yet as greedy telecos don’t think there is any money in it).
For sure, scamming has been going on for years and long before the Americans starting getting twitchy with huge telecom switch providers like the Chinese Heuwai , Geggyboy was not waxing so lyrical about it or indeed the caliber of those installing it. Just ask any of the Batelco technical boys on on the platform. They are sick to death of me bleating about this or that. I get shouted down loudly by many in the biz, dispelling my theory that any IP based system can be easily hacked at customer level, but they respond by saying that it is ‘unlikely’ and that I am a bit of donkey not knowing what I am talking about. It is sort of like the default reaction when you hear the name ‘Geg Hopkins’ or you are unfortunate enough to meet me for the first time and have to endure my gesticulating.
All well and good, but my theory is that it is a doddle for the initiated to quickly hack a network. For sure the FBI
GOD’S LIVINGROOM
Again I failed to make good on my updates. (telecom) I keep saying that I have articles written which only need proofing and I could post them, then sit back and let all the critics have a field day. Like Christmas, they are coming, like all the music I want to make – it is coming. For now though……………….. As a quick filler, here is a bit of a disguised telecom rant. If some of you do not understand the technical bits, don’t worry, just read between the lines and you’ll live longer
So many times I have said it – ‘I am a telecom man’! Not through choice, but by necessity and I support all telecom companies just as any loyal employee would their own industry. Especially if the telecom company keeps paying me money. I actually get on very well with telecom people, but sometimes I want to shake some art and creativity into them.
Telecom companies have had their day though. Read more
33 IS SEXY
The original article has been removed – now updated (Draft 5 – 30th June 2010 )
With number portability about to be unleashed upon the nation of Bahrain, I am busy doing a multi piece on Telecommunications Companies in all their glory – so WAIT!!
Talking about putting the cat among the pigeons, being able to strap your favourite, long time held, number to any of the providers is going to really set off a typhoon of incentives one hopes. Imagine, you have a great ‘3333xxxx’ number, which you don’t want to lose but you don’t happen to like the provider; then simply port your existing number to a competitive carrier. Of course, there has to be a catch coming for sure, nothing in telecoms is done without it being a potential honey trap; like if you want a ’33’ number for example but you are not a Viva subscriber, then we might have to pay big bucks to get one from the original provider – or – will all providers be able to issue any string. Hmmmmm! Deep and meaningless written like that, so read on.
As for the ’33’ thing; this post was all about ‘start-up privilege which as of June 2010, still exists, but if number portability hits Read more