The Etisalat saga continues..

Etisalat finally came to install my receiver for my cable tv. However, they did not tell me they were coming, and when I came home one night, the security guard told me that they had come and installed it. I was quite excited, not about getting tv but more for the prospect of not having to call 101 again, pressing 2 for english, pressing 4 for evision and pressing 2 for not being an etisalat customer, then being told to wait because all their "customer service representatives are busy".

Fat HOPE.

I went into my hall, saw the receiver plugged in, switched on the tv, but nothing happens. I tried rebooting the receiver, but nopes nothing works. So I pick up the phone, call 101, press 2, press 4 and 2 again and speak to a call centre lady who tells me "Of course its not working mam, because we haven't activated it".

OK NICE. So you come to my home twice, install the devices and then don't activate the account until I call you?! Nevermind, give us 2 days and we will activate it for you. And true to their word, 2 days later and 4 weeks after I first applied, I got my cable tv up and running.

I browse the channels, there are a couple of hundred, most of which I haven't subscribed to, or are in Arabic, and not arranged in any particular order). I press the TV Guide button on the remote, and nothing happens. I press the "Info" button on the remote, but of course nothing happens. So, now I have no idea what is on, or what is coming on, or what is even showing on the channel I've chosen.

I reluctantly pick up the phone and call 101, press 1, press 4 and then press 1 (because I'm a customer now!). I speak to the agent who tells me, "Sorry mam, you have the new receiver and the TV GUIDE function has not been activated yet. It will only be activated in a few weeks" (In etisalat time, it means a few months). So I tell him I want the old receiver, but he says no because it has all been phased out. So, how do I find out what's on and when? He says Go to the website and I can find it there.

Now that all sounds easy enough, except that there is not 1 provider, there are 3 separate tv providers with 3 separate websites, and all with TV Guides that do not show online when I click them.

Out of frustration, I call one of the actual provider to get a copy of the guide, they tell me to call their dealer nearest to me, I call the dealer and the dealer tells me to call the provider because it has been 6 months since they received any guide and I wasn't the first customer who was complaining.

Great, what else can these people throw at me?! So now I have a functioning cable tv, with no easy way to avoid browsing a hundred channels to find something I want to watch. Awesome.