internet service in mexico | Surviving Mexico

In December, I received several text messages from the satellite internet company that our data was running out and that we should renew. I was a little concerned since I knew that we had only signed a contract for five years, and I wasn’t sure when that contract expired and what would happen after that to our service. Would they come and get the antenna? Would we just not have a working connection?

So I dug out the contract and read it through again, but I still had questions. I had my son try and call via Skype, but the number went to a fax machine. Then I tried to have him use the “chat” option on the website, but there was no way to submit a question. So I had to put saldo (money) on my phone and try to call from there. Lo and behold, the call went through. He talked to a representative who said that we could continue paying our monthly fee and they would continue providing service even though we had fulfilled the terms of our contract, which expired in November. He even managed to get my email contact information corrected. It’s only been wrong since we signed up.

Because things seemed so uncertain with the satellite internet, we decided to see what we could do to improve or upgrade the other internet service we have. Well, that mission was a bust. The place where we had contracted the service said that our service could stop at any moment since they no longer have the portable modem setup plan. It’s not that great of a service, but something is better than nothing, right?

So our next line of inquiry was to find out if TelCel had anything we could use. Remember, we have no landlines for TelMex to piggyback on. We borrowed a water bill from my sister-in-law and headed out to the mall to ask.

Since my son had never contracted any sort of TelCel service before, he was asked to provide four phone numbers. One was to be a house phone, one a work phone, and two references. At least one of those needed to be a número de casa (landline). Ugh! Nobody we knew had a landline in Moroleón.

We took the form and went home to try and figure something out. We used my cell phone as the house phone and my friend Claudia as the work number. Then my sister-in-law’s cell phone was one reference, and my friend in Mexico City gave us her house’s phone number to use. Back to TelCel we went.

This time the holdup was that my son’s CURP (personal identification number) listed on his INE has an “e” instead of an “m,” and the computer system kept rejecting it as a valid number. My son was born in the U.S., making him an “extranjero” rather than “Mexicano” at least according to CURP. It took several hours, but eventually, someone managed to override the system into accepting his CURP.

He contracted the service for 30 months, took everything over to the other counter, and paid two months in advance, plus the cost of the modem. It ended up being about $2000 pesos, give or take. He also got a TelCel stuffed toy, it being Christmas and all, no charge.

Monthly, it’s the same price as our main (not satellite) internet, although apparently, there’s a 200 yearly charge added on for whatever reason. It works as well as the other internet we have, and my son is happy since he doesn’t have to work around my teaching schedule to use his laptop. Of course, if either of our internet services decides to stop providing service, that might change, but for now, we’ll take it.

***

The struggle is real! Be more prepared for a life in Mexico with the A Woman’s Survival Guide to Living in Mexico series!

So all of a sudden during a Tuesday morning class, neither internet was actually providing internet service. I had to put in an emergency absence form for the second half of the shift. The satellite internet hadn’t been working since late afternoon on the day before, so I had gone into the class knowing I didn’t have the backup. Then the Blue Communications internet just sputtered and died.

Unraveling this mess took more than a week. Beginning with the satellite internet, our regular monthly payment day is the 26th of the month. We normally pay it a day or so beforehand, but this month one thing after another kept us from actually paying it until the 26th. When we called to see why it wasn’t working after our payment, it seems that the contract had been signed on the 24th even though it hadn’t been installed until the 26th. Thus, the company decided we were delinquent in our payment on the 25th of this month and shut down service. Whatever. We were now current and on the 27th, we had satellite internet again.

Now for the Blue Communications internet story….

After trying to log in to the company site, we received an error message stating our SIM card was not functioning. This internet service uses a modem that uses something like cell phone signals to provide us internet way out in La Yacata. So since this was a SIM card issue, we took the modem to the office in Moroleon. We explained what the problem was and they started shaking their heads. We would need to call the technical service number for assistance. They couldn’t do a thing. The installer did plug it in at the office and verified that it wasn’t working correctly, but that was all. We asked whether they had another modem in the office in case the one we had couldn’t be fixed. I was assured that they did. I should have asked them to show it to me though.

Anyway, we went home with our modem and had my son call technical support. He was to be our representative in this matter for several reasons. One is my husband hasn’t a clue on internet/computer related gadgets. Secondly, though I do, I have difficulty understanding Spanish over the phone. So our teenage son took up the gauntlet.

Tuesday afternoon, he was on the phone over an hour doing troubleshooting. You know, move the modem here, press this button, now log in and tell me what it says. Nothing, ok, now reset this and reconnect that and tell me what is happening. Anyway, after all that, the tech confirmed that there was something wrong with the SIM card. He assured us that a report would be filed and that within 1-2 days, it would be resolved.

On Wednesday, the internet was still not working. So my son called again. He spoke to another tech person who said that no report had ever been filed on Tuesday. He assured us that the issue would be resolved in 1-2 days.

On Thursday, he called again. This time we instructed my son to say that it either gets fixed or we cancel the service. After being referred to a manager and then referred to that person’s manager, the cancelation request was finalized. I’d receive an email in 1-2 days to confirm that our contract had been canceled.

Meanwhile, on Friday we went to the office in Moroleon. We requested a new modem and a new contract. Now they didn’t have a modem for us. Huh! Go figure. If we would come back in the afternoon, they should get delivery by then. Meanwhile, they had a 5 MBPS modem that they could rent us. The owner had gone to the U.S. and didn’t want to let the contract lapse.

I told them that I wasn’t interested in that modem. Our modem had 10 MBPS and while it wasn’t consistent, when it worked, it worked well.

We returned that afternoon. Nope, no modem. Try back on Monday. On Saturday, the internet was working as well as it ever did. Good for a time, then dropping, sometimes coming back, sometimes not. So my weekend classes were not a bust after all. Plus, since the satellite internet was working again, I could do the ol’ switcheroo in the event one internet lost its signal.

On Monday, my husband went to check to see if the modem had arrived. The lady in the office gave him a hard time about canceling the previous service and trying to set up another one. I don’t understand why. We have no contract with Blue Communications. It’s set up on a month-to-month plan. The modem we bought outright. However since that particular modem was tied to that particular month-to-month service, in order to get a new modem, we had to cancel the old one.

Anyway, she told my husband to try the rental 5 MBPS modem out and see how that worked. So he brought it home and I used it to teach. It worked about as well as the other one. Only I still didn’t want to “rent” the modem. What happened when the owner decided to come back to Mexico? We’d be out of a modem.

My son called the support line again. He said that the person he spoke with this time apologized for the problems we’d been having as well as for her co-workers who didn’t seem to be able to figure out what they were supposed to do to file a report. Of course, no report of the internet outage had been filed for our account, nor any cancelation request sent through. As long as we paid our monthly fee tomorrow, the service would continue uninterrupted.

So we went back to the office in Moroleon to return the modem. We requested the deposit for the new modem and monthly contract back. Of course, they didn’t have the money. The lady suggested that she could apply the balance to our monthly fees, which would pay us 3 months and change in advance. Well, it’s not what I had planned for that money, but I guess it would do. She gave me a piece of paper with words to that effect.

Despite all of our precautions, the last day of our monthly plan, our internet service was cut off. We learned an interesting tidbit. Once your account has been deactivated, you can not access the customer service line by entering your account number. It’s like blocked or doesn’t recognize it or something. So since we couldn’t get ahold of anyone by phone, we went back to the office in town. They said that our payment had been made and gave us a receipt. When I asked whether someone could call and find out what was wrong with our account, the service technician told me to send them an email insisting our service be fixed.

Umm, if I don’t have internet at home, how would I send an EMAIL which requires the INTERNET? Go to the Cybercafe and wait there for a response? So that was completely useless advice in my opinion. Anyway, since the backup satellite internet was still chugging along, I had my son log on to the company website and chat with a representative. She told us that there had been no report made for service repair but there was a cancellation request. Válgame dios! (Oh my god!) She asked if we would like to reactivate our account and the next day we were back in business. Well, as much as we ever were with this internet provider.

Tag Archives: internet service in mexico

Internet Procedure–Again

Continuing with the Internet Crusade