Golan recognizes DST problem a couple of days late..

I have been happy with Golan Telecom ever since I switched. The price is good. I have never yet had a problem of seeing my bill at the end of the billing period and finding all sorts of hidden charges, I have very good reception, customer service has been very good though rarely needed.. though they just did something that made me scratch my head and wonder what is wrong with them..

As you all surely know by now, Israel was originally scheduled to revert off of DST this past Saturday night (really Sunday morning, but who is counting..), but recently changed the law to extend DST until the end of October. As a result, this past Saturday night many smartphones around Israel continued as originally programmed and reverted off of DST. Many Israelis woke up Sunday morning not knowing what time it really was - was the clock on the phone right or wrong?

Some of the mobile service providers had sent out a message during the week prior to the expected problem instructing people how to avoid the problem, by changing a DST setting on the phone to indicate the location of Athens instead of Israel.

Golan did not send out such a message.

At least not last week.

They sent me the message last night, two full days after the incident. And, today they continued to send out such messages to their customers. The text message sent by Golan Telecom read:

בעקבות שינוי בחקיקה בכנסת המעבר לשעון חורף יבוצע השנה ב-27/10. רוב המכשירים החכמים לא עודכנו בשינוי ויתכן שכבר עברו לשעון חורף. על מנת לתקן זאת אנו ממליצים לפעול על פי ההנחיות הבאות. הכנסו להגדרות של השעה והתאריך ושנו את ההגדרה ממצב "אוטומטי" למצב "ידני". לאחר מכן, עדכנו את אזור הזמן לאתונה-יון. יש להשאיר את ההגדרה במצב "ידני" עד ל-27/10 אז אפשר לחזור למצב "אוטומטי" ולאזור זמן ירושלים. יוצאים לחו"ל לפני ה-27/10? מומלץ להחזיר את ההגדרה ל-"אוטומטי" בזמן השהיה בחו"ל. להנחיות מפורטות הכנסו ל- www.golantelecom.co.il.

Translation:
Because of the change of the law in the Knesset, the reverting to winter time this year will be on October 27. Most smart devices have not been updated with the changes and it is possible they have already reverted to winter time. In order to rectify this, we recommend you follow the following instructions. Go into the settings, blah blah blah..

Did they really think that for two days I, and many others, have been trying, unsuccessfully, to figure out what to do about my phone on winter time? Could they not send out this message last week?

Regardless of Golan, with the phones syncing the time off of satellites and internet, one would have thought that there would be a fairly simple solution for members of this Start-Up Nation in getting the new time rules synced as well...

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