As a long-time customer of all Cablecom products (even mobile, until it was discontinued) and in good standing, I was offered a very good deal for a mobile subscription. At just CHF25/month Mobile Unlimited 2000. It was exactly what I needed so I arranged to have my number ported from Sunrise. The changeover took place less than 3 weeks ago.
All was going well until I tried to send an MMS abroad and one within Switzerland. They would not be sent, even though all of the settings were correct. I checked and rechecked them with Cablecom’s own online instructions for my phone. Still the messages could not be sent.
The next day I called support and I was informed that MMS can only be sent between Cablecom phone subscribers, and certainly not to providers abroad. I was told that the recipient would receive a link in order to view a message’s content, and that would even include a message that has a smiley face emoji. In order to test this the support person asked me to try and send an MMS to a couple of non-Cablecom numbers he had given me. They could not be sent. Not even the aforementioned link.
I asked why that was and was told that MMS and SMS are being phased out around the world because more and more people use Whatsapp, so Cablecom decided to institute these restrictions.These restrictions are nowhere to be found anywhere on the Cablecom website or even in the setup instructions mentioned above.
That is a ridiculous reason. Firstly, it will be quite a few years until SMS and MMS have gone the way of the pony express. Even the support person I spoke to thought it was ridiculous and couldn’t even speculate when/if that will ever happen.
Secondly, there are many people outside of, and within Switzerland that do not use or want Whatsapp or other texting programs and are quite content with SMS and MMS, at least for the time being.
Forcing customers and their friends or family to start using outside applications is not a good way to keep customers or attract new ones, especially when there is no info available regarding MMS restrictions.
So after less than three weeks I am going back to Sunrise. Although I might have to pay a bit more, at least I will receive all of the services advertised and not be fooled into buying into a lie.