Starhub and BlackBerry activation issues

I have been using M1 blackberry service for sometime, it is good and I don’t have any significant complaints so far.  As I have been curious as always, I wanted to try BlackBerry service on my Starhub line.  I recount my experience with StarHub.

1. Approx. 20.00: Called 1633 and requested activation of BlackBerry service. Was told it’ll take 1 hour
2. Approx 20.15: received a call back, was told that it was Sunday and it’ll be activated within 24 hours or tomorrow.
3. The following day 08.00: Called 1633 and asked when the activation will be done. Was told it’ll take 4 working days

Do you see a formula here? 1 hours -> 24 hours -> 96 hours. Given this exponential increase, I withdrew my request and spoke to a supervisor/duty-manager to highlight the service lapses. He promised that he can activate in 1 hour if I give him an opportunity to do so. I kindly declined the offer.
Was this a case of incompetent customer service officer where they are not well informed or simply a miscommunication between ‘departments’ within starhub.  Regardless, I find it Starhub very hard to disappoint me in the past and they did this time.

Good work !

Upgrading PS3 Software, StarHub and Earth day

What does PS3 Software upgrade, Starhub and Earth Day have to do with each other? They are well connected, in fact.

Last night, I tried to upgrade my PS3 system software to 2.70. As it doesn’t yet support Wireless 802.11n which is connected to Apple Extreme Base Station and SingNet 10 Mbps service, I used Starhub MaxOnline 8Mbps service connected to Linksys Wireless 802.11g.  Guess what, It takes forever, each percertage increase takes at least 2-4 minutes. The whole update should only be about 100 MBytes.

So while I’m upgrading the software, I can’t do anything with the console. It takes more less an hour and generated a lot of heat on the console. If I recall, PS3 uses about 300+ Watts about 3x what Lenovo Thinkpads and Apple Macbook Pro uses.  Given the slowness of Starhub Broadband, I am thinking that I should have used my SingNet service.  I pulled a long ethernet cable and connected my PS3 to Apple Base station. Voila, very fast about 1 megabyte/sec or so.

So I just wanted to highlight: Slow ISP will use more of your electricity and takes a lot of your time. Change to a faster one even with some price premium, you’ll be glad you did. Not only that, you’ll use  less electricity and save the earth !!!