Update: Our eagle-eyed telco stalker Huei has also found that DiGi began its troll as early as yesterday, before the #Hotlink plan was announced. Check out the Facebook photo after the jump!
Earlier today, Hotlink announced its new #Hotlink prepaid service, which offered free basic Internet speeds of around 64kbps without any pay-as-you-use charges. Of course, that’s not very much, but the idea is to allow #Hotlink users to stay connected to send and receive emails as well as the various instant messaging services available even with a prepaid plan. On top of that, #Hotlink also offers a RM1 per day plan of high-speed Internet (which comes with its own sneaky caveats), or the option of paying RM30 outright for 1GB of data.
Then came DiGi. The local telco has been known for the occasional trolling act, such as the “eye exam” picture on its Facebook page, as well as a more elaborate stunt shortly before April Fool’s Day this year. For both stunts, the responses were largely positive, as DiGi was seen as instilling an element of fun to its social networks.
This time, it appears DiGi went a step too far. Tweeting the above image earlier this evening, the company poked fun at #Hotlink’s 64kbps unlimited Internet speeds, and linking its own prepaid Internet solutions. Unfortunately, it rubbed the wrong way among many Malaysians on Twitter, who were mostly unhappy at the fact that DiGi were making fun of a rival telco’s Internet speeds while its own mobile network has built a reputation of being one of the most unreliable in the country.
The tweet drew so much flak, that it was eventually deleted. But as they say, nothing truly gets deleted from the Internet. Check out the precursor image posted on DiGi’s Facebook page, full image tweeted by DiGi, as well as some of the best responses to DiGi’s rather tactless tweet, after the jump.
The image above was DiGi’s first attempted troll, posted yesterday on its Facebook page before Hotlink’s announcement earlier this morning. At the time, it didn’t seem to mean much, until…
@DiGi_Telco it's 2013, and you still charge an arn and two legs for internet? RM25 for 500MB prepaid tablet internet? Are you still in 2007?
— Boeing 747 (@Boeing747S8) September 25, 2013
https://twitter.com/badiyee/status/382825188280127489
@DiGi_Telco slam ads only work when they are true. Perhaps you want to fix your coverage first?
— Lucas Lau (@notlucahs) September 25, 2013
How’s that LTE rollout coming along, anyway?
Thanks for the screencap, @lokgotz!
