We live in a little make believe cocoon called Malaysia and the threat of globalisation is going to destroy all our companies, GLCs and private, who insist on doing business as usual. MAS and Proton have already felt the heat. Telekom Malaysia is another government privatised company which still functions very much like a government department.

I applied for the Streamyx broadband Internet service in December just before Christmas. I was told to call a 1300 number for activation. After doing that, I was supposed to be able to enjoy broadband Internet speeds. However, after three days there was no DSL light which means that my line has not been hooked up.

Telekom claimed to have checked the 'jumpering' and said there was nothing wrong. Two installers have come and said there is nothing they can do because the problem is with Telekom. Two months on, I still cannot enjoy my broadband. To rub salt in the wound, the TM's sales department sent me a letter to say that I have not activated my account and if I don't do so soon, they will cancel my subscription.

Then as if that was not bad enough, I was billed RM88 for two months of broadband access which I have not even got. Somehow there seems to be little communication between the departments. What a mess!

All it takes is for TM to check the jumpering, go to my house to verify its working and if not go back to the jumpering again and repeat that until the customer is satisfied. What is lacking is a service mentality. If Telekom Malaysia is truly profit-driven in a competitive environment, it will realise that an unhappy customer will be someone else's customer very soon. If there was an alternative out there, I would have switched immediately.

Close shop or wake up. The Malaysian market is an Utopia but the world out there won't react so kindly.