RINGING IN THE NEW YEAR

I hope that we get better telephone and internet reception in 2017.

The service in 2016 has been crap.

I complained almost a year ago about the problems I had with Spark when I arrived back from the UK.

BACK IN GODZONE

I eventually got things fixed but not really satisfactorily given the price we pay for phone and broadband.

I initially had my cellphone with Vodafone but this proved hopeless as I couldn't get decent reception here up North so I switched to Spark even though I'm not happy with their service. With Spark I get slightly better cellphone coverage but this still necessitates going out on to the front deck to have a conversation. It also means having to talk loudly and to repeat myself in order to get my messages through which is not good when trying to conduct  personal and private business while everyone down the road can hear.

Now I fully understand that the telecommunications companies have problems when it comes to providing full service to outlying regions but why do they still charge the top rate with no discount given for outages and poor reception. Imagine if supermarkets and large format retailers sold products through regional stores at the same price as in the cities but of much inferior quality. There would be an uproar but the telecommunications companies get away with it all the time. We pay about $120 a month for just the broadband and land-line and another $50 for cellphone.

Still, I suppose that when I'm up here the content of the phone calls isn't great wIth lots of unsolicited calls from various call centres.