Desiring a SMILE and Getting the Reverse
As a lover of trends and grand innovations, I was excited when I heard about the SMILE 4G services . I hurriedly bought the irmifi from an out let at City Hall Onikan Lagos at the cost of #16,000.00. last year. The cost of the device incorporated a 5 gigs data. I desperately needed a SMILE experience and the super fast services associated with it. I must be tagged a fool for swallowing hook line and sinker, all that their media advertisements contained.
The first thing I noticed was that the device does not work in my house in Festac although the agent absolutely and categorically told me it works very well in the area. Upon my complaint, a staff was sent to my house to conduct reception test. It was apologies to me there after as I was told to exercise patience until they build a mast around my area. As if that was not enough, the data of 5 gigs was completely exhausted within a space of 3 days even though i use it only in my office in Ajao estate and usually on my phone alone and not on the laptop. My greatest frustrations was when I called the customer service to complain and I was informed that the depletion was due to the super fast speed of the services. I asked a simple question; if your services are super fast, I suppose it will help me download a 1 gig file in maybe 5 minutes as against the slow ones that may take about 30 minutes. The size of the file is logically not affected by the speed but only that the time is reduced. So how does the speed affect usage if I control my usage? I got no reasonable answer though I succumbed to the advice that I reduce the speed from the settings on the subscription page of their website. After which I was assured it will be normal. I was also compensated with a free 3 gig data. I happily accepted to try again. I use a Samsung Note 3 and I ensured that all applications that run automatically on wifi were disabled except the ones I manually choose.
Unfortunately the 3 gig did not see the next day. Even while the mifi was off and not in use the data was reducing; how it happens I cannot explain. After the experience I resorted to the usage of android bundle of air tel since then and I am not so sure I know where I kept the SMILE mifi except that I see my children play with it as if it’s a football and I do not raise an eyebrow for a device I used to keep out of their reach before my disappointed encounters.
I was annoyed when a customer care staff of the company called to know how am enjoying the device. I didn’t mince words to tell her that I have dumped it after those discouraging experiences. I hope innovations like SMILE will fulfi l what it stands for. I saw an advert of their new mifi with longer lasting battery power and I asked; Why can’t they swap the old ones for the new ones for persons that purchased the old ones since they are upgrading. I know starcomms did that some years ago free of charge for old customers. The customer needs to be satisfied especially naive people like me who believe all they read or see on an advertisement.
