I have my own reasons to be angry with Airtel Broadband. They overcharged me, don't give me double speeds at night. Speeds can be real bad at times. But, one of the user at the India Broadband Forum collected some good points with the service. Here they are!
In a moment of clarity (fuelled by alcohol), i felt i figured out this whole Airtel jhanjhat.
Airtel is actually being more honest than we give them credit for, by trying to give us, in a way, what has been promised.
Stay with me on this...
I have a 128 connection... hence, IDEALLY, i should be getting 16kb/s. but i don't. i'm getting 10-11kb/s these days. sad, but true.
But here's the good part.
They've promised (me, via a specially delivered letter) double speeds at night. and, lo and behold, i'm getting 20-22kb/s around 11pm. <-- don't know till when, since i don't stay up till 4 or 5am. but even a few hours of such a dose is good.
Let's celebrate.
Celebrate "the consumer"'s complete inability to talk sense to the flowchart cramming duffers who form the first level of tech support. and to the "senior tech people", who come on the phone five minutes after you're put on hold. who stonewall and ask for money. (it's a long story.)
Celebrate the fact that airtel's customer care line is toll-free. ;-)
Celebrate the disgust at having to bribe the friendly neighborhood Airtel guy for a few pointless nuggets of information, by giving him directions to astalavista. (and copying/exchanging a few juicy items onto/from his company issued usb flash drive.)
Celebrate the shortsightedness of airtel management, which chooses crappy, in-house, phokat-ka-maal broadcom-labelled-as-beetel imports, disregarding the benefits of better CPE.
Celebrate the personal friendships (e.g. the wali connection) formed when our airtel accounts give us the finger.
Sigh.
Moral of the story: (i'd) be(tter be) careful at places and on times labeled "media night."
p.s. 10% is peanuts. customers do care when they're shafted by brain-dead little punks, who haughtily inform them that Airtel guarantees 64k, and baaki sab is bhagwan bharosay, in a tone that reeks of "and you wasted my precious call centre time to ask me this crap, without looking at the product brochure more carefully?"