Tunisia's only broadband internet service provider, Tunisie Télécom, does not provide customers with status information or status updates when their service is suffering from outages.

Only?... Well, Broadband internet is and has been a state monopoly since it was first introduced in 1996, the cables that run across the poles and underneath the ground are the sole property of Tunisie Télécom.

None of the upper-level/dowstream internet service providers, like Globalnet, Topnet and Orange will ever contest this. How so?

Going on a wild goose chase

I haven't had a stable internet connection for the past two weeks, I have called Globalnet, my internet service provider, a sophisticated word for what is essentially a software layer (PPPoE, DNS and a bunch of bullshit cloud services no one uses) for Tunisie Télécom's physical networking infrastructure, a total number of 11 times over the span of 17 days.

The issue manifests as a blinking DSL LED and a dead internet LED, a slow blink, unlike the usual rapid blinking indicating a proper connection.

So, what was the cause?

At no point did Globalnet give me a solid answer, but here's a quick list of what they suggested throughout those 11 calls:

1. Check the telephone lines for damage
2. Lower my bandwidth to something my vDSL line (which had been suffering from immense noise) could handle (I was at 50Mbps mind you, which I had lowered down to 30Mbps to test their hypothesis)
3. Wait for a technician to come down for an inspection

So?

1. Seeing as I had extended the copper telephone line (because it wasn't long enough), there could have very well been an issue with the wiring, so I redid the cabling by myself three times, I even changed my RJ11 wall socket and the RJ11 cable
2. Did that, but there were no differences in the line attenuation and SNR margin numbers
3. No one came, so unless he was stabbed and hospitalized, I cannot imagine why it would take their technician 17 days to reach me

I also bypassed Globalnet and called Tunisie Télécom directly. They refused to help and told me to contact my internet service provider, when I protested saying that the issue was likely from their end, they insisted I call Globalnet.

Interestingly, Globalnet's own internal support ticket (created on July 09) where they described, in their own words (because the tickets are not user-editable), that the issue was not from their end, but rather Tunisie Télécom's.

Eureka

My brother, whose house is beside mine, a Tunisie Télécom customer, was coincidentally suffering the same issue. Our telephone lines come from the same pole, the same terminal. We have different modems from two entirely different manufacturers.

He did not extend his own cable, and unlike me, he's not the type to fiddle with his modem, so we can rule out the chance of this ordeal being a wiring or configuration issue.

What's left on the table? A single possibility, Tunisie Télécom is suffering outages it has not been (effectively) communicating.

Hell, even their service coverage map is down (as of July 26):

STEG, like Tunisie Télécom, is a state monopoly. Although these two state-run companies seem to have nothing in common, they are both manifestations of the government, so it's not wild to think that they are both built upon a similar mode of operation: obscurity.

Obscurity

Famma Dhaw is a recent public initiative that provides a listing of regions and towns and their respective access to power.

This, as far as we know, was built under a few weeks, during the major outages that had occured during mid-July, by people like you and me.

Famma Dhaw did not and likely would never have come out of STEG.

STEG, by the way, has existed for over 60 years. It is shocking in that during its more than 60 years of existence, none of STEG's executives thought that creating a public outage tracker would have been beneficial.

Enough with STEG, let's circle back to Tunisie Télécom.

Communication

In the software industry (what I do for a living), properly communicating your outages is the baseline, you just cannot build a reputation on shaky grounds. I don't understand why a seemingly basic right for information is all so foreign.

This is especially true when you're the single provider of a country's entire broadband infrastructure.

Tunisie Télécom, being 30 years old itself, has yet to offer a public outage tracker... Does that remind you of some... one?

You might imagine Tunisie Télécom being the 30 year old deadbeat child of a 60 year old STEG, if STEG were to have a child at 30. The ressemblance is quite uncanny. It's almost like it runs in the family.

What's next?

Famma Dhaw is the result of dissatisfaction of the current state of affairs and the willingness of the poeple to take matters into their own hands (a.k.a crowd-sourcing). It is not the responsibility of ordinary citizens to maintain a public service tracker. It is fallacious to think otherwise, only Tunisie Télécom can provide its customers, the tax-payers to whom it owes everything, with a comprehensive and reliable service tracker.

Anything short of that is unacceptable and proof that obscurity is at the root of everything wrong with our public institutions.