Our relationship with telecom companies in our country is similar to the one Arabs have with the United States of America. We need it but it does not need us; we love it but it does not love us. Telecom companies are milking money out of us and they do it with great skill. Almost everyone has more than one mobile phone, our children included. Mobile phones are indispensable. What makes us fall under the spell of these companies even though their services are not up to scratch? These companies have telecom towers that resend images and speech and they get paid a lot for the services they provide. And, of course, we pay the service charges. I am not talking about a certain company. In fact, every one of us complains about the poor services of all the telecom companies. However, we have no choice. Of course, the rates they charge us are unreasonable. On top of that, we pay line rental charges. In other words, we pay for the towers that are installed or set up on the roofs of buildings. The companies pay landlords a nominal rent for setting up their equipment on rooftops. Some might also say the companies pay a lot of rent for their physical offices. This is true but what they pay in rent does not match the high rates they charge us. If one of these companies has a problem or something goes wrong, the customer will bear the brunt of it because the companies know how to compensate for the losses they suffer. We are the victims of these companies. We pay them money in advance, then they tell us we should pay more so that our phones do not get disconnected. When we check the bill online, we see no unpaid amount, but the line gets disconnected anyway. However, we are addicted to our mobile phones and cannot live without them. We have to pay the bill. In a nutshell, the services provided by telecom companies are low-quality and most of the time we end up paying charges for services that have not been provided to us.
