The MEO saga - part I (of ??)

Writing this up was almost as exhausting as living through it (97)

Tl;dr: we have been living in our new apartment since April 11. We still do not have wifi/tv service from MEO, our provider. We do not know when this situation will resolve.

We know of three internet service providers in Lisbon: Vodafone, Nos, and MEO. When we were starting our move to Portugal last year, the apartment manager for the place we were renting recommended MEO and they had a decent deal running so we went with it.¹

We don’t love the service we’ve gotten from MEO, but we signed a two-year contract for internet, tv, and phone, so we figured it would cost more than it was worth to try to switch companies when we changed apartments. Starting the transfer process was relatively easy at least (though expensive, as they charge a 25€ transfer fee). Unlike power or water, though, we cannot have service at multiple locations simultaneously so on April 3 we scheduled a technician to come on April 11 (moving day) between 14h and 16h and get us going at the new place.

All was well until Scott was woken from a badly-needed nap on April 7 by a call from MEO asking if they could come that day to start the service. Nope. Move Day, please.

MEO also kept us on our toes by texting at 20:30 the night before their scheduled visit and demanding we reply to confirm we’re still on. Yep. Still on.

They arrived as scheduled and immediately ran into trouble. The technician opened the utility closet, said, No fiber, and walked out.

Wait, what?

Scott managed to suss out that there needs to be “a box” attached to the building before individual apartments can be connected to the network. This box did not exist here yet.

When can the box be installed?

Unclear.

The building next to ours appears to have two of these “boxes.” Perhaps they can spare one?

Scott called MEO a few days later and learned they would give us free mobile data until they can get our apartment connected. This meant we could use our phones as hotspots in order to access the internet from our laptops.

How's the cell phone reception in your home?

What about when you're not standing in the corner of the kitchen by the open window?

Yeah. 

Ours, too.

Reception isn’t strong enough to allow watching TV, but we had plenty else to keep us busy. It was good news. Not as good as actual service but better than having to pay for a hotspot.

The laptop is using the phone’s internet connection. It works. Mostly. As long as we stick to the one room.

Scott was unable to determine on that call when the mysterious fiber box would be installed so he tried MEO again on April 21 and was transferred to a department where, he was warned in advance, “they may not speak fluent English.” After a failed conversation there, someone called him back to say MEO would call us when our fiber box was ready to go.

Um, OK. Any idea when that will be?

One to two weeks.

In parallel with this was our new downstairs neighbor who had moved in a few weeks before we did and needed internet more urgently than we do (she works from home). In her previous residence, she'd been using Nos, who was telling her they would have a fiber box installed on the building in late April (apparently each company needs to install their own separate fiber box). When Scott mentioned that MEO was giving us free mobile data, she went to a MEO store where she was initially told our building was already set for fiber. Eventually, the folks at the store were able to determine that it wasn’t. On April 21, she spoke to the chief engineer of the building, who told her that all three internet providers would install the fiber boxes on the same day, April 26. Somewhere along the way, she canceled her contract with Nos and switched to MEO, in part because she was under the impression that only MEO would be allowed to put a fiber box on the building - something which would be very unpleasant for our upstairs neighbors here who are Vodafone customers (and were also still waiting to be connected).²

April 26 came and went with no news. Our neighbor went back to the MEO store and was told May 5 would be the day the box was installed and that she would be connected to it no later than May 15.³ May 5 also happened to be two weeks since Scott was told it would take one to two weeks, so maybe there was actually some truth to this.

May 5 came and went with no news. In the meantime, though, we did have two other technicians come to the building, only to be stymied in their attempts to get us connected because there was no fiber box. Clearly, the left and right hands at MEO were not communicating with each other.

On May 8, Scott called MEO again and was told that the box was still in phase two of its four-part journey.⁴

• Phase one: request to make the box.

• Phase two: build the box.

• Phase three: install box on the building.

• Phase four: technician comes and gets us going.

The box was being built and the good news was the “expected completion date” in the system was … May 8! The rep was both unwilling to state the box would actually be done that day and also quick to report that phase two is usually the longest of the four phases and that phase three can happen in as little as 48 hours. Scott excitedly updated our neighbors, letting them know there was a non-zero chance we could be hooked up by the end of the week.⁵

The following day, Scott heard a prolonged series of beeps coming through the windows and realized someone was at the keypad on the street. He stuck his head out the window and asked in Portuguese if the man needed help.

Precisa de ajuda?

Words flowed back up at him, Scott picked out MEO and rushed downstairs to let the man in!

He had less English than Scott has Portuguese. After some failed attempts to use a translator⁶, our downstairs neighbor opened her door to the commotion in the hall. She speaks Portuguese (French is her native language, English is her third) and had a conversation with MEO Man. Turns out, he’s a sales rep. Scott didn’t get much of what transpired but he said he would return the following day with a friend of his.

Why?

Unclear.

But return with a friend he did.⁷ Friend also worked for MEO. But since Friend didn’t have a key to the hardware cabinet, there was little he could do.

While we have easy access to our electric and water meters, the internet/tv stuff is behind a locked door. Guess they have internet pirates in Portugal, too.

(Why did they come?

Still unclear.)

Friend spoke only a few words more of English than Sales Rep and no neighbor came to the rescue that day⁸ so Scott was mostly confused. They left saying one to two weeks.

For what?

Unclear.

On May 11, MEO called - the first time during this entire saga that they’d intentionally initiated contact. The poor woman on the phone was given the joyous task of informing us they might not be able to fix our situation until mid-JULY. Scott incredulously confirmed she meant July Julho and not June Junho (she did) and listened as she told him to call MEO at the same number she was calling him from to discuss our options.

What options could there possibly be? he asked.

I don’t know, she responded.

Hopefully for her sake that was the end of her initiation ritual - those calls can’t be easy to make.

At this point, we were flummoxed. It wasn’t as though Nos and Vodafone had already added fiber boxes to our building, so we didn’t exactly have a lot of choices. But maybe either or both of those companies would be adding them sooner than mid-July?⁹ Hard to say. We’d heard enough to know not to trust what we hear from sales reps.

What to do now?

Unclear.

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And here is where we will break off as we’ve already written more than 1000 words of “Part II” of this saga and there’s no end in sight.

In summary: we were called on May 11 and told it might be mid-July. It is now June 8 and we’re no closer to a resolution. So, yes, mid-July is looking more and more likely. We’ll post part II when it’s appropriate. Hopefully, there’s no need for a part III.

That’s all for now.

Love from Lisbon,

Scott & Amy

P.S. Read Part II of The MEO saga here.

P.P.S. And if you don’t like middles (or maybe just want to be contrary), here’s the end of the tale.

1. Though the list price on the deal was originally 59,99€ per month for TV, wifi, and 10GB of mobile data per line, we’ve usually ended up paying a little more than that as there are ticky tacky charges for things like sending pictures through SMS messages. We’re learning to avoid those but they also raised their rates a few euros. Still, not bad compared to what we know many people pay in the US.

2. If that sounds confusing it’s because communication on this issue hasn’t always been clear. Multiple native languages are involved.

3. Moving the goalposts will become a recurring theme throughout this saga.

4. He was also assured that once this was all over, he could call and explain what happened and we’d be credited for any charges we’d incurred for services we couldn’t actually use. That should be interesting. Yes, this does mean MEO is continuing to charge us full price.

5. And also that he wasn’t optimistic that would actually happen.

6. Poor cellphone reception in the foyer. If only we had a wi-fi connection.

7. This time, rather than attempt the keypad again, he simply called boa tarde (good afternoon) repeatedly from the street until Scott heard him and scampered to the window.

8. Cellphone reception in the foyer had not spontaneously improved over the last 24 hours.

9. Our upstairs neighbors were told that Vodafone will install a box sometime in June.