Monthly Archives: March 2006

Tata Broadband: Looting customers?

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Well, we get to hear about horror stories; ISP’s routinely trying to palm of customers for slow speeds or capping on the usage. This one is in the league of it’s own. And it pains even more when it comes from the house of Tata’s.

Well, to cut a long story short, this person works with a respectable computer company. He wanted to have a connection of his own to work. Since he lives in a place where there is no other service provider, he chose to trust his money in Tata’s brand name. However, despite repeated calls and efforts, he couldn’t trace the “executive” for his connection.

Here is the scanned receipt for the same on Flickr. I have obscured the name of the person for privacy reasons.

In his words and I recount it here. Emphasis is mine.

I know that I can claim for compensation. But you know the situation in our country. Even if I do file a claim it’ll only keep on dragging until God knows when. And that’ll be more frustrating than this. I am doing my very best to disuade people from opting for Tata. In fact,there were a few people asking me about this issue after they saw my post on your BB blog. And its only that I need net at my place urgently and there are no other providers that I am going for them.

So, service providers take advantage of monopoly. Well, is there any way to rap their knucles or flog them?

In another mail, this harassed customer related his tale as such:

After getting another assurance from their Territory Sales Manager, I waited for three days. But as in the past it turned out that these people are fast with assurances than their work. I called this guy up on Sunday morning and I was told that I’ll get a call from him in 5 mts with an update. After two hours of waiting I decided to call this fellow up and but to no avail. It seems that they have a policy of not responding to the customers calls, if they don’t have anything to say.

After being fed up with all this, I went to the cable operator who’s supposed to do the installation and told him that these people are putting all the blame on you. Hearing this, he also got agitated and requested me to talk to the Tata Indicom fellows in front of him. We tried but even his call wasn’t taken. Finally he told me that whatever these people had been telling me were all lies. He was told about my connection 10 days ago but he wasn’t able to provide me with one because the DSL port through which the connections are provided, were not
sufficient enough to complete the requests of the 5-6 pending connections which he had with him. He told me that these guys had asked him to market for them,inspite of knowing the fact that they might not be able to keep their word or time limit to the customers.

I thank you readers for the time and patience you put in to spend here. I chose to do this post because we need a public platform to highlight the mess behind the hoopla. Why are theseservice providers trying to take us for granted?

In the same vein, I am pissed off from BSNL, but have to stick on to them because I really don’t have a choice.

Don’t miss the sub text. Even though this person can be compensated in the court of law, no one ventures to step in for legal remedies. Consumer courts cases can drag on for months to years even though it is legally mandated that the cases need be disposed off in a particular time frame. In any case, what do these companies have to loose?

A customer? There is enough captive base for them.

An update:
After this post was written, the person concerned got his connection the next day! Rah! The power of this blog!

Well, frankly, it can’t discount the fact that he had to undergo such hassles. I wish him all the best with his cable strung from trees and poles, getting him whatever is worth it. Hmmm, I wouldn’t be ventured or brave enough to deal with VSNL ever. Don’t have that kind of guts.

Reliance Broadband: Buying out HFCL Connect?

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Well, my insider sources are not willing to confirm nor deny the move.

As far as the usage impression goes, Connect betters BSNL only in customer apathy. Though, recently faced with the onslaught of competition, there was a clear directive from the top bosses to shape up or ship out.

Long time back, I had approached Connect office to provide me with dial up connectivity. The screwed up idiot was hell bent on providing me with ISDN- a premium service in his opinion. Despite promises of high usage, they refused to extend the wireline to my place. Interestingly, they were insisting that I pick up CoRDect- a wireless mode of Internet access.

The buyout rumours might be true. HFCL’s script has shown it the way. It rose significantly in yesterday’s day trading on BSE.

Interestingly, Reliance has dug up only those areas in my city where HFCL Connect isn’t offering it’s services. I was indeed surprised in recent times that they are not going to high density zones. Yet, this is just a pointer and perhaps future might reveal the truth.

Reliance would be well poised to get a deal for HFCL. They would have a captive base for landline customers some of them who have been stupid enough to go along with promises of 400 MB “free limit”. However, HFCL had chalked out plans on the lines of Reliance Web World under the brand name “Planet Connect”. They misleadingly claim about surfing at 1Mbps; the bandwidth is distributed to different terminals. Either, this was a ploy to get higher value addition to the imminent sale or stupidity of monumental proportions. HFCL has by and large a small regional player; with no depth of the market. Neither, there is any buzz around the company.

So, it cannot hope to get on even ground with Reliance or Airtel. Plus, it is sorely dependent on bandwidth from the biggies.

Overall, it would be a great buyout for Reliance. A solid deal. And perhaps help them to roll out their Broadband services to exisitng and new customers.

Exciting times indeed. By the way, this is the only place where it is being reported; Google News hasn’t picked this up so far!

You can read the old posts on HFCL Connect:

1) Smaller Telecom Operators of India. I had written in about Connect:

Do we need these smaller players? Well the answer is yes and no. Smaller players lack the marketing muscle of the bigger ones. They are encumbered to localized regions and cannot offer economies of scale. However, the smaller players can offer faster customer response times. Sadly, this fact has not really reflected as far as Connect is concerned. I have mailed and personally talked to the people in charge for extending the services to my area, which they consistently refuse to do so. I gave up in disgust.

2)HFCL Connect- running out of luck?

For how long can they sustain themselves? Spice Punjab has announced plans to expand in other markets. Connect is opening up it’s browsing centres on the pattern of Reliance Web World. While this is belated entry, it is enough to attract puppy crowds towards what they call as Broadband. It seems that much of the time is spent on chatting. So much for the “millions of Internet subscribers” do to access Internet. It cannot be generalised but a cross section of the surfers mainly use for Emailing and the like. A minorty are power users. It remains to be seen as to how HFCL survive.

Airtel hasn’t made any major moves in the market so far.

This post was prompted by imminent buy out by VSNL/ Airtel. It didn’t materialise. Does it mean this Reliance buyout is another rumour? We’d have to wait.

3) In Interesting Developments I had reported back that Connect is setting up it’s Planet Connect showrooms.

Interestingly, the top searches for HFCL Connect point towards this blog :-)

BSNL: Unlimited? Another illusion?

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Well, so it seems to be. Another mail from the official and another promise.

He says, 10 days at the maximum.

You can follow this up on the Broadband Forums here.

By the way, I noticed some guys who are copying my posts and pasting them online without any reference or link to the original. Their collective intelligence is less than my sweet labrador; who pisses on the BSNL’s junction boxes. While Internet anonymity is nearly guranteed, I believe that it shows you guys in real poor light.

These are the bunch of pricks on India Broadband who have copied most of my posts without mentioning the source.

Bah! I have many demons to slay. BSNL is one of them. Well, my dear readers, should we emascualte this prick or stuff him up with his own pile of s***?

Sheesh. I can’t believe it. Poor sods. The reason,I have linked here is to avoid these screwheads from any kind of a traffic.

An update:
I was wondering if their asses be full of fleas, screwed up, f***ed up mangy dogs, with moth eaten brains and the icing on the cake…hold your breath. Their father in laws be working as BSNL clerks. The glorifed babus.

It can’t get worse than this.