I am planning to experiment on a new format to air live shows to the audience. Given the constraints on the time, I hope to record something on the web and then you could watch it at your leisure. Updates can be had from Twitter or Jaiku. I use Pingfm to simaltaneously address all the social networking sites. Isnt that really cool. I just realised that I am not very popular though.
The guest post offer is still up. It would be worthwhile to have a different perspective if possible.
Woohoo. My persistence paid off. I have made the company credit the bill that they owed me. In addition to that, I have made them apologise for the whole fracas. I have realised that despite their claims of “happy to help”, they are among the most disorganised band of morons; just like the other operators.
Having a multiplicity of operators is not going to help unless they are brought in line by a regulator that has real powers. This is wishful thinking unfortunately.
I was thinking of the old times when I was dependent on BSNL’s largesse. I fought the shitheads on the phone, clogged their email servers and created a lot of brouhaha online for the same. I made them run around to give me a connection that actually worked. I made them correct the billing faults; I made them see through my point. It was a tough battle but it was only designed with one intention. We can achieve far more success in life if we are allowed to reach our full potential and not be constrained with the artificial barriers. People across the world are reaching out to new avenues; our development stops just short of South Extension in New Delhi. Thats the kind of “Gurgaon” model that we hold up to the world to signify our progress.
Making the company pay for their follies is an example that I wish to hold up here. It makes sense to be persistent; sniff out their potential weaknesses and hammer on whatever they respond to you. I emailed all the previous mails with this implicit knowledge that even though no one is going to read it, the company would be shamed to have a mess on their hands. The media likes to sniff out such incidents and I had plans to alert them to such “harrassment”. Elsewhere it would have been a PR disaster because one of the most important system of a mobile company is their billing system. I am told that it is a very expensive solution and needs to be robust. If people start having doubts on the billing system, they would desert it like rats on a sinking ship. It is perhaps for this reason, the telecom operators are loath to act on the complaints.
Further, a system should gurantee the fact that it not open to abuse. Mobile cloning is a persistent danger and there are many dudes in Palika Bazar who do it for a small fee. There is an whole underground system to clone the shit; mobile companies must be able to proactively anticipate these incidents and prevent them. Or else, it would be a disaster. An utter chaos.
I have made them pay. If anyone is reading this in official capacity, a middle finger up to you. If someone is reading this in personal capacity, dude, you are a personal failure to make a company worth it.
DoT has allowed the global firms to try their luck for 3 G spectrum. The existing companies have a lot at stake and are crying foul for obvious reasons. This is different from TRAI’s “recommendations” that only the existing players be allowed to bid for the scarce spectrum.
It’s only going to benefit the dodos flashing their new gen Apple iPhones. Who needs a frigging wireless Internet which can work only in isolated pockets of the four metros? There are enough idiots rooting for the cause and I have a nagging feeling that the existing technologies have not been upgraded to benefit consumers instead. A big sloth, this industry relies on its own lethargy.
The auction is expected to fetch the existing Government crores of rupees which would be funneled in wasteful expenditure and of course line their own Swiss Bank accounts.
They make obscene profits and the all the while claim that they pay the highest taxes in the world. If the market conditions were so difficult, who has forced them the stay out around here and sell their pathetic services? A fair weather indication of their turnover is the news that the mobile tarrifs have increased to over 1.30 lakh crore. If the estimated numbers of millions of Indians joining the mobile bandwagon is true, this is a serious party and money. I would still need a confirmation and no one knows the real picture barring perhaps the telecom operators themselves.
They have fudged the numbers, dodged the taxes and take all of us a big ride. Thats the reality of big businesses all over the world.
TRAI is best known as a regulator that cannot enforce it’s own recommendations. Therefore, it brings forth new regulations to replace the ones it had brought earlier. It believes them to be set in stone and believes that they are timeless. It is with this fallacy, TRAI has remained in existence.
Rediff reports about TRAI recommendations. They may portend the future of the things to come.
Despite their brilliant advertising claims, Vodafone India has made a mess of it’s customer care. Why doesn’t it translate into effective delivery at the ground level?
I had made a payment for my mobile phone elsewhere; outside from the home circle. I was assured that the billing system would be updated. As luck would have it, the system didnot update the payment and I started getting messages and calls from female “recovery agents” to pay my dues. Surprisingly, they have a knack of calling in at such odd hours; they start off without even extending basic courtesies. I insisted that I had paid for the amount and I directed them to enquire from their Vodafone Store where I had paid the cash. They did not make any effort to trace the amount but instead chose to lay the entire blame on me.
All said and done, they barred my outgoing calls and I had to make the payments under duress. Although, the phone was working again after much cajoling; they took an entire day to get it “activated”.
My credit limit is more than sufficient and they made me run around like a scared rabbit. What is clear from the entire episode is that despite their claims, they did not bother to check their backend (literally and figuratively) and rectify the issue. It could have been very simple to call up the dud on the other line (through proper channel in their parlance) and find out the billing details as well as the payment made. Although, in the routine cases it sounds audacious because they have to take care of “millions of customers” but the fact is that they cannot afford to loose loyal ones. I have remained with Hutch for over 3 years now only because of their talk plans. So far, I have not had much of the issues with their billing per se but this one off incident has shaken my faith in the company. So much so, that its more of a hurt than anger that’s bothering me.
There are many other stories like these replicated day in day out across the country. With an ineffective regulator and lack of awareness, most of these nitwits are having a free run.
This is the problem with having oligopolies. The customer isnt the king any longer.
UPDATE: I have been updating on the forums as well. So far, no reply from the company.
