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We have already written about the difficult road of introduction of wireless internet to the masses. Amazingly, some countries have not even resolved wired access problems and Greece is unfortunately one of those places. To start with, ADSL2+ is the best connection tech available and is marketed as the solution to all our problems. But is it like that? Not quite… The largest part of the country gets 2 Mbps maximum and the only provider is OTE, the national telecoms company. Some areas get 4 or 8 Mbps but for only parts of the country, in other words Athens and Thessaloniki, Athens and Thessaloniki & of course Athens and Thessaloniki. You want a connection from another supplier? Sure! But you have to pay them the monthly ISP charges and OTE the line lease charges. But the best part you have not heard yet! In the case that you have a problem, the ISP blames OTE and OTE blames the ISP. Sounds funny? Well it isn’t, simply because when you call any company’s hotline you might have to wait for hours (it is not a joke, it happens all the time) and then the service you get might be very very far from what a customer would expect.

The biggest complaint of existing customers is that of low download speeds. My connection of 512 Mbps was upgraded for free to 1 Mbps last year, but for the largest part of the day I get speeds of my old 512 Mbps or even slower! What’s the whole point of promising speeds that cannot be offered? Moreover, what’s the point of paying for speeds you only get between midnight and 8 am? Open any computer magazine and it will be full of ISP adds offering 2-play, 3-play and speeds up to 24 Mbps. These only apply to private networks which currently exist guess where… Athens, Thessaloniki and hopefully soon in other places too…

Statistically things look pretty good with a 2007 broadband connection increase of 85% compared to 2006. But such figures are expected in a country with one of the lowest internet penetrations in the EU. Computer magazines are full of customer letters expressing complaints, but to no avail. OTE still has almost all of the pie and one would expect great service from other ISPs, something that has unfortunately not yet been seen. All the above was recently summarised by the president of the EETT (the National Regulatory Authority that supervises and regulates the telecommunications and postal services) with the expression “the level of technical support and customer service of citizens from companies of telecommunication services is today unacceptable”. Moreover, Costis Hatzidakis, the Greek Minister of Transport and Telecommunications is launching a phase of dialogue between all sides involved in order to introduce new rules of correct conduct and ISP performance control… This is good news, but one wonders, shouldn’t these rules be already in place in a market that operates for some years now? It’s like buying a car and then trying to fine the money for petrol and servicing…

 So going back to wireless internet access and in order to finish in a positive note, we ought to say that mobile telephone companies in Greece are providing top quality service. There are few complaints and competition is such that all players are striving to improve and offer new products. Wired internet access in Greece is a complicated and problematic sector. We are dreaming of WiMax to come save us…

Link 1: EETT

Link 2: ANA-MPA