Speed, that I was supposed to carry

Updated at 19.34 hours IST on 7 June 2012. Curious case indeed.

"Speed You Can Carry". Well, that's the tagline for TATA photon+. According to the parent company, photon+, with its 3.1 Mbps connectivity, is supposed to be some steps ahead of its predecessor, the TATA photon wireless broadband. The company also claims that Tata Photon Plus is a High Speed Internet Access Service (HSIA) that should provide downlink speed of up to 3.1 Mbps and uplink of up to 1.8 Mbps. As always, there is a whole lot of difference between claims and reality.
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It was the morning of 25th May 2012, Saturday, when the trouble started. Repeatedly, the dialer refused to get itself connected to the network, the reason being the remote computer's unresponsiveness. After a few tries, when I could finally get connected to the Internet, the connection started to crawl. Firstly, not even the home page of any web based e-mail service would open, and when it did, it was simply impossible to log in. In fact, it reminded me of the dial-up days, when we used to get disconnected frequently and while trying to reconnect error messages like, "Remote computer did not respond" were pretty common. But those were the pre-broadband days!
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After this connection-disconnection-crawling-not responding game  continued for an hours or so, I called up the toll free, dedicated customer care number for Tata Photon, 1800 266 121. An assuring & calm lady's voice from the IVR told me, "Please call 1515 from your Tata DoCoMo connection for any problems related to Photon" and it hang up without saying anything further. I called again. Same result. As soon as the call was 16 seconds old, the line automatically got disconnected. I tried 5-6 more times from 2 different numbers. Alas, the end result remained the same. The Einstein did not tell me how I was supposed to make a voice call from the Photon+ connection!

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At last, I could get hold of a customer care executive at 6.30 pm, approximately 6 hours after my first try to contact them. All he said was, "Extremely sorry for the inconvenience sir. There are some connectivity issues in south Kolkata, which should be sorted out within the next 2 hours. If you face a problem even after 8.30 pm, then please call us and lodge a complaint." Rocket science! Isn't it?
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It was 9.30 pm and still there were no solution. So, I called up again. After the usual niceties, I was told to clear my %temp% folder, which I duly did. As nothing happened, I called up again at around 10 pm. The executive told me that their software was not running and that I should call back after 30 mins. 11 pm and the same story about some congestion in the network and upgradation work of the system was shared and I was told to wait another 2 hours. Patiently I waited and called again at 1.30 am of 26th May. The gentleman on the other side listened to every derail and uttered the word "sorry" some 10 times. He then told me that a ticket had been raised and the technical team would get in touch with me pretty soon.
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Satisfied, I went to sleep.
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A princely 11 kbps downlink was available.

I woke up on Sunday, 26 May 2012 and still the problem did not show any signs of going away. So, I repeated the entire procedure again. Twice, in fact, and with the same result. Lastly, at 10.05 pm, I told the exec that I was sick and tired of this 2 hours business. Then, he said that may be it would take 5-6 hours more to be rectified and that I could safely take this for granted that the normal connectivity would not be restored before Monday morning. I just thanked him and with whatever available speed, sent a complaint to their helpdesk.
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In the mean time, I had managed to run a speed test and it showed that I was getting a princely 11 kbps of bandwidth as against a claimed speed of 3.1 Mbps! On top of that, just think that before you buy their product, they promise that if you fill up a form, they will call you back in 10 minutes. After you have bought and got caught in their net, its a different story altogether. Reminds me of those jokes on demo and the real versions of hell! Unfortunately, can't even laugh in this case.
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To top it, the collection guys will invariably call you some 7-10 days before the due date for payment, to remind you the amount due and the last date for payment. And, they will repeat this bloody exercise every alternate day till the due date, irrespective of payment being already made. Just imagine, you are in a meeting with a client, someone calls you and tells that she is from Tata Teleservices and would just like to remind you and blah blah blah! Highly irritating.
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Even, my Reliance Netconnect Broadband+ was far better! True, they don't have coverage in the North Eastern states, but in all other places, they actually provided broadband like connectivity.

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In this case, after all these, finally I have been allotted a complaint reference number and Tata Teleservices had promised that someone would get in touch with me by 1.46 today, i.e. 27th May. Let's see what happens next and what more surprises they have in store for me.

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Have you faced similar problems with your service provider? Please feel free to share your story as a comment in this space.

Great Indian Drama After The Petrol Price Hike

Since the last price hike by the central government, there has been a lot of sounds of discontent from different quarters, specifically targeting the prime minister Mr. Manmohan Singh and the finance minister Mr. Pranab Mukherjee. Most of the political leaders have taken this opportunity to fish in the muddied water. So, we have a General Strike on 31st May, called by the BJP (or is it NDA?), we have a UP bandh called by Mulayam Singh's Samajwadi Party, we have protest rallies by CPI(M) & the left front, and even by their sworn enemy, the TMC. At last, amidst this intolerable heat and humidity, some good news! We are going to have some off days to chill. And, in the process, Indian economy will lose some hundreds of crores of rupees. But, that's acceptable. After all, the interest of the common man is sacrosanct.
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Common man? Yes. At least the political leaders, as well as our netizens, would like everybody to believe that.
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You still end up asking an idiotic question. Who actually can be tagged as the all important "common man"? Now, come on! Please don't show the entire world the true depth of your intellect, you will be told. Still, you persist on knowing how the common man is effected by the hike in the price of the petrol. You will be told in a very condescending manner that the common man in India today owns 2 wheeler and 4 wheeler, goes to his workplace normally driving his own car, goes to the neighborhood market riding his bike and still you ask such questions. After all, isn't India shining? You shake your head in acceptance and walk away.
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In the fear of making a joker out of yourself, you fail to ask the questions that had been trying hard to open the lock-gate and come out of your mouth. There were so many of them. You wanted to know whether the people who cannot spend Rs. 32 per day in a metro or the people who earn Rs. 33 per day, are they called "uncommon man" ? The people who travel by public transport system everyday because they cannot afford a 2 wheeler, let alone a 4 wheeler, whether they also are called "uncommon man" or not. The villager, who depends on the 100 days work scheme, what's his tagline? How do you classify the hawker on the pavement, the conductor on the private bus, the porter at the rail station, the panwalah near your home, the newspaper hawker, the domestic help, the vegetable seller? And this list is endless. Are not they the numerically superior group of people? If so, following the principle of democracy, should not they be called the "common man"?
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Oh, come on! These are irrelevant questions and raised simply to derail the agitation of the leaders of the masses. So what, if the daily labourer and his family have to skip a meal due to the strike? If the people from the bottom most strata of the society go on empty stomach for half a day or one day, is that a big deal? After all, they are used to it.
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But, we, the empowered common men of India, cannot travel in the crowded buses amidst this heat and humidity. We cannot walk to the market as we don't have the time. We have to switch on the AC in the car to beat the heat. And, all these require petrol as the source of energy. So, if the Government has given a free hand to the oil companies in deciding the price, that is so unethical. So what, if the oil companies have to bear huge losses by selling petrol at a price lower than the cost? So what, if ultimately the taxpayers' money is being used for compensating the oil companies? At least, we bought petrol at a cheaper rate na!
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And the circus continues!