Tag Archive for 'Reliance'

Reliance India Mobile: Out of my life!

Published on 27th Mar 2009 in Indian Telecom. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Oh boy. It was an impulse decision to subscribe to Reliance Mobile’s “One India” plan. I was “seduced” by the idea of having a single number and talk “unlimited” to any other Reliance number.

Unfortunately, I ran into network issues. I faced the maximum number of call drops, static and overall terrible customer care. It was pathetic to know about their billing cycles which very way off the mark. They charge for the time you connect on to call any other GSM network which is usurious.

Any amount of pushing the customer care to do their bit did not help. I had to request, cajole, shout at them to make the thing work. It would have been worthwhile to stick on to their plans had they improved “customer delight”. Their bills delivered by email were way too late and the printed bills reached me at the end of the billing cycle.

At any given point of time (whenever I used to be in Reliance Showroom to pay the bills), I saw angry customers shouting at the front desk.

Reliance, in my opinion, is a lousy service and one could just get on to them if you have tonnes of money to spare or burn. Or else, if you are suffering from masochism that you take delight in being served the wrong end of the stick being stuffed up through your back side. It’s that kind of an experience with them.

I am glad to be out of their “clutches”. I feel that they have lost their bearings and are hanging around as also rans in the market. With the sole exception of concenterating in the smaller moffussil towns like Jhumri Taliyan where you’d find their lousy signals and dumbstruck village idiots paying through their nose without realising the way they are screwed.

Anil Ambani perhaps has better avenues to concenterate on.

Some late night thoughts

Published on 26th Oct 2008 in General Thoughts. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , .

I have been travelling over the weekend back to my native place which was untouched by the glitz and glamour of the metros. This Diwali seems to be muted; partially because of the economic recession and partly because of the widespread inflation.

I still cannot understand the “mobile story” and “fastest growth” crap. More and more people are migrating towards parallel connections instead of the trickle down effect as expected. Agreed that “lifetime incoming offers” have appealed to the segment of population who keep their mobiles only for incoming calls, the precentage is far and few inbetween. We have no break up of the demographic profile and if the trends are to be seen, much of the money and the effort is being poured in the metros where there is more of a spending power as compared to other cities.

I have three telephone connections; one for regular use, the other a landline for broadband access and the thrid for calling up other Reliance numbers. Overall, I fail to understand as to how they would account for the “churn” or the “fastest growing segment” because I have never been enamoured of using the VAS. The operators know that there bread and butter segment is the voice calls and I am sure that they would implement the VoIP solutions to cut down on their costs. Everything else is flotsam and media generated hype.

In the same vein, most of the other handset manufacturers are clearly not making any efforts to address the cost of the handsets. Barring the advertising costs, if they implement open source solutions for the newer PDA’s, it can reduce the cost of the handsets to a large extent. Google’s Android would effect this to a large extent; though, I would reserve my comments on it till the time I actually get to use it. It’s still in the nascent stage; I am sure it would mature with the next release as they learn from their mistakes.

Vodafone has not addressed the GPRS connection charges; I still have to come across a reliable operator who can ensure a seamless connectivity across the major highways. I would want to access the Internet on a long boring journey; it remains a pathetic experience to even open up the mailbox. I don’t favor the mobile net on the move partly because of my bais for broadband and partly because it’s assinine to peer in the small screen. Unless of course, one has an iPhone and Safari which makes it a pleasure to surf on the small screen. Brilliant conceptual implementation.

The elections are nearing and I am keeping my fingers crossed for some semblance of the maturity on the following government to provide a clear direction to the broadband access and policy. We can do a lot more once we have a reliable connectivity. We dont need fancy laptops for kids in rural India to demonstrate the “modern with rural” mating. Its assinine to pour in money for something which just remains a showcase and earns you f***ing brownie points for “corporate social responsibility”.

This is just a loose string of thoughts as I was travelling back down. Although, it is a fascinating experience to see the rural landscape change. We realise that there is a lot of untapped potential and there is a chance to “change”.

BIG Tv

Published on 15th Sep 2008 in Indian Telecom. 3 Comments Tags: , , , , , .

They made a huge splash over their advertisement.

It is lame. Truly. I did come across their blog where they have attempted to “reach out their customers”. At best, it only shows snippets of their website and their product.

Here is the guy who made this commercial. And here is the making of the commercial:

Why this interest in DTH? I have joined as a Reliance customer because I needed their unlimited calling facility. So far, selling their multimedia enabled handsets would allow them to leverage their cross media holdings to reach out to a ready pool of customers. Mercifully, I have been included in their DND list or I would have been spammed about Anil Ambani’s latest venture. I was surprised to see Reliance Web world selling and renting out movies too; in addition to their “broadband”.

DTH remains another of their pipe dreams; it would be interesting to watch them battle it out for the customer’s wallets.

IPTV India: Against DTH?

Published on 15th Aug 2008 in General Thoughts. 5 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , .

Viewers are spoilt for choice. DTH is a credible option and at the start of the day, I had no frigging clue to the pent up demand for the same. The Direct To Home players like Tatas and Zee have spent oodles of cash on advertisements and hardware roll out that it appears unlikely that a newer player would be able to get a toehold.

Here in the grand strategy of Anil Ambani unfolds. He got the ad labs, poured in money in content creation and would make a huge moolah out of “exclusive” deals with media players. The value added services is a growing market and there is a HUGE space for exclusive content; I was surprised to know that there is a seperate channel for gardening; Tata has one for home tuitions. Although, it cannot replace the classrooms but then parents are keen for any degree of experimentation.

Coming back to IPTV. Does anyone of you readers think that this could make any degree of impact on the viewership? I feel that most of the people mistrust the landline outages (which are so frequent) unless there is a fibre to home coming to their homes with simple instructions to operate the set top box. The present hardware is designed to confuse the first time users; somewhere it ought to ring the bell to make it as simple as possible.

I would reserve my comments on the two competing platforms till the market matures up. Reliance is lying down low with it’s broadband offering. I am still wondering as to what has been the issue at their end. Why are they delaying the commercial launch? There are any number of ideas floating around and if they claim to be India’s number one network as far as the coverage is concerned, they ought to focus on their cherries. Or else, it would die a virgin.

Reliance Wimax: Disappointing customer service

Published on 11th Aug 2008 in Indian Telecom. 1 Comment Tags: , , , , , .

This is a guest post from a reader, Mr Naveen Roy. He had sent across an attachment and detailed his sad story in the email. Its hard to believe that the customer care can be so dumb. Many a times, it’s a lone dingbat sitting in some corner of their “headquarters” who is replying to the assinine mails clogging the inboxes. There is a wide disconnect between the “customer care” and the idiots who have to the do the real work. I can testify for this; I had a major hassle with Vodafone.

Here is the write up by Mr Naveen Roy. You are most welcome to send in your feedback as well and I shall be glad to carry out the same here.

All I wanted was relocation for my Reliance Wimax connection. So I called their Customer No Care. All the automatons tell you is that you have to pay! When I really started digging for more information did they tell me that I have to take the equipment with me! Damn, I nearly missed that and god knows what I would have ended paying up for! Then I had to call and ask what the next step was. They told me that I would have to raise a relocation request. This I did. And this was done 2 days before I moved.

So I took the equipment with me and carted it to the new place. Then I called Reliance Customer No Care to find out what the status of the relocation request was. They said that it will take a week! I said ok and waited 2 days. Then when I called for an update, I was told that I will also have to pay Rs.500. Then I asked how much for a new connection. I was told that its Rs.500. I asked how long that takes. I was told that it can be done in a day. Well, I asked why there is a difference in relocation and a new connection in terms of the days. Well, the automaton there replied that it is company policy. I pushed harder for a resolution. No go. Automaton says that he cannot understand. I ask to speak to the supervisor. I am FLATLY REFUSED access to any kind of help!

I call the next day asking for the supervisor again. Again, no go. The automaton this time even accuses me of calling in just to WASTE HIS TIME!! Damn, I was so damn pissed off that I cut the call cause I am worried that I might transform myself into some electrical noise and burst his goddamned brains!

The next day, I get a call from their Customer No Care asking for my email address! When asked why, I am told that there is a form that I will need to fill up for relocation. By now, I am thoroughly and totally fuming. I ask why they don’t have it in the system when they send me the bills to my email address! When Reliance needs my money, they have my email address so that they can send me the bill. When it is something concerning service, they conveniently forget my email address! And I also ask why this relocation form was not sent to me the day that I raised the relocation request! No reply. Automaton says something that makes me want to puke in disgust. He disconnects call. Remember, I swear like a sailor. But all these calls, I have not used bad language at all. Not even calling these automatons the word STUPID. Which they all are!

Damned automaton then disconnects the call. So I call Customer No Care again and I am told that I was at fault. I am told that “Customer did not respond properly”. I said ok, thats fine. I am done with you guys.

I call Airtel, who even though they provide good service, usually do not have feasibility in many areas. Well the service desk was like a breath of fresh air and assured me that there was feasibility. I did not even have to pay a deposit as I took the corporate connection. The connection was done in 3 days and on the 4th day, there was light. Err no, the internet was working!!

Now, the joke with Reliance does not end there. Some days back, I receive an email from Reliance Broadband with my bill attached. But by now, I am not surprised. I am really frustrated. So where was my email address when the relocation form needed to be filled up?? So damn pissed off again, I send a mail to their generic customer no care email address and hope that this atleast will not be monitored by automatons. Well, wonder of wonders, IT IS!!

Well, rather than lose my head and breaking my head banging against a brick wall, I decide to take it cool and not bother about Reliance anymore. I wonder if I ever will trust Reliance in any form again! And the tag line on their service emails is – Looking forward to build a lifetime relationship with you. Like hell I would want to have a relationship with a company as this.

Makes for a disappointing story indeed. I hope that this gets some mileage and enough warning for others before they put in their hard earned money.

Mobiles in India: Value added services

Published on 10th Aug 2008 in General Thoughts and Telecom News. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , .

This is a link to Rajesh Jain’s blog; Emergic. I am glad that he has started blogging again, although he is doing to promote his venture called as Netcore. He used to post across links daily to various tech columns and had amassed a good amount of readership. One of his employees is Atanu Dey who blogs regularly on his own site on Deesha. I am not sure how they are joined in the scheme of the things but Rajesh Jain does have his own crack team.

He does some numbers on the mumbo jumbo that is Value added services and I am more inclined to believe these stats as compared to the crap that gets dished out in the media. All in all, it is not the billion dollar industry but a more sedate estimated $200 million dollars. The number of subscribers may be “booming” but the real revenues are not. The mobile industry is playing a volume game and the new entrants realise it.

I feel that as the market matures and regulation becomes more pro active (i.e. there are no two centres of power- TRAI and DoT), it would be more fruitful for the customers. For starters, we would have more representation in the regulation from the customers; a real watchdog on lines of Ofcom who would penalise the lousy shit heads called as honchos and fair play instead of favouritism to likes of Reliance.

VAS (value added services) would help to extend the utility of the handset. Instead of downloading ringtones (which is an absolute no brainer), the likes of m Commerce might take roots. I had written an article on the same ages ago; Tata had plans to launch it in India. Somewhere along the line, the lost that game and became just another company with a fancy mobile telephone infrastructure.

If the market has to grow, there has to be a shift towards the basics. m Commerce can happen via secure sms based transactions. If the acceptance grows, I am sure there would be a good amount of money to be made in this.

RCom India: Soft launch

Published on 04th Aug 2008 in Indian Telecom and Mobiles. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Media reports are rife about speculation that Reliance Communications (RCom) has had a soft launch of their GSM mobile business. They have awarded a huge contract to Huawei (stupidity) and is being financed with Chinese money to expand their services. Incidentally, they own the company to lease out the towers for both the CDMA as well as the GSM services. It all remains in the “family”, so as to say. It’s pretty incestous.

I am eager to know about their service levels as well as their plans. They had shaken up the mobile industry earlier in their avatar and the space is all set to grow. Lets see how this unfolds.