I am a subscriber of Mimos' Jaring dial-up service and TMnet's Streamyx broadband service. I have been a Jaring dial-up member since 1996 but I only subscribed to Streamyx service early this year.

Currently I use Streamyx almost exclusively because it provides high-speed Internet access. However, I still maintain my account with Jaring as a standby due to Streamyx's frequent service outages.

Also, I maintain my Jaring email as my primary email because I have used it for a long time and all my friends and associates are familiar with it. It would cause a lot of inconvenience and hassle if I were to change it.

Initially I had no problems with retrieving and sending email through Jaring while connected to the Net using Streamyx. Now I can only retrieve, but not send, email using Jaring's email ID via Streamyx.

I tried to call Mimos for an explanation but to no avail. I did manage to get in touch with Streamyx and was shocked when I was told that due to a business dispute between Mimos and TMnet, the former has put an obstacle to Streamyx connections to send mail using Jaring email ID. And I was also informed that as a tit-for-tat, TMnet is doing the same to Mimos.

What a shame when the only two Internet service providers in this country have to resort to such mean tactics to resolve business disputes. Worst of all, innocent customers like me are being used as pawns. Surely they must be aware that whenever two elephants fight, the poor ants will invariably get trampled upon.

Are business corporations in this country so used to monopolies that they can only stay in business if there is no competition?