The worst decision that I did was to become a TATA-VSNL customer

The worst decision that I did was to become a TATA-VSNL customer!!

I had applied for a connection, and the person was there the very next day to install a router based connection. I was impressed. The connection worked for about 15 days flawlessly. Then I got disconnected.

I rang up the call center and informed the disconnection. They registered a complaint and assured me that the issue will be resolved in 24 hrs. 24hrs passed, then 48, and then 72.. I had to ring them up to find the status of my complaint. The person repeatedly kept saying that there was a cable theft, and connection will be restored “as soon as possible”. I found out from a local fellow that there was a dispute between the cable operators and TATA. But the call center guys had no clue. They maintained their stand that engineers were working on the issue.

Just about the end of the month, I got a call from Tata, reminding me that my pack is due for renewal. Huh! this in spite of the fact that the connection was down. This only highlight the disparate way of their working.

At last I got the connection only after a full month of disconnection.

The people that TATA has hired at their customer support centers are a bunch of idiots, who know nothing about the broadband problems that they claim to provide support for! For example, you ask them about why the connection is unstable, they would respond by a suggestion to clear cookies in IE, and/or delete offline files, and/or clear history. How pathetic!!

2 months passed by, there were some brief intermittent disconnections - like local server down, etc. Irritatingly throwing you offline just on Saturdays and Sundays when connection *is* really required.
Now, guess what? The connection is down again. I had registered a complaint about 3 days ago, and they are yet to receive a callback that they promised. They have gone back to the same stand “issue will be resolved as soon as possible”.

Calling up the support center is really traumatic. First of all, you have to spend money to call the support center, for no fault of yours. They *do not* have a toll free number. Next, you are forced to listen to not so thrilling music while you are put on hold for as long as 10 minutes. One line goes - “register for Tata Indicom mail and you will get 64MB absolutely free, and check mail from any where” - as if e-mail its their invention and they are so generous to provide a speck of 64MB!! Also, each time you call up, you confront a different person, and you have to re-narrate the ramayan right from start.

This time I have threatened to discontinue their services, but I have no reason to believe that this can have any impact on them.