*What could be worse than Hutch? Only Hutch!!!
Use of mobiles, various network and reason of change to HutchI am a mobile user in Tamilnadu for the past 5 years, since I joined college. I have used Aircel and BSNL. My experience with Aircel was pretty bad. Those were the days when mobiles were getting popular, regular network jam and failure of delivery of SMS forced me to change to BSNL which offered me better call rates and dynamic roaming. Infact till date my dad and mom still use BSNL, the very same number.
I regret, changing to Hutch. I had used Aircel for 2 years, 2003 and 2004. I used BSNL for 2 years from 2005 and 2006. The reason of change of connection to Hutch was my BSNL connection expired when I was in Banglore for a brief period of 6 months. On using Hutch in Bangalore and the cool advertising campaign I decided to go for Hutch in Tamilnadu. I have been using Hutch since October 2006.
*Network in Tamilnadu, Bangalore and Roaming
*Hutch network in Tamilnadu is very average. Call drops, missed calls and blank calls are a regular issue on Hutch. I study in coimbatore and my college and hostel is next to coimbatore airport. I find the network to be very poor in my college and majority of places in coimbatore. Otherwise network is good in most places and also during my train travel to Vellore and Chennai its pretty good. Even in coimbatore I find the network to be good in town centre. But at times abrupt call drops really bug you especially when you are on an important call convincing the HR for a project in a company or when we are speaking to our loved one in far away places. I was in Bangalore for 6 months during my project when I found the network to be pretty decent. Over all in Tamilnadu the network has improved but the quality of network. I have roamed in Karnataka, Kerala and Andhra Pradesh with my Hutch connection. The network in Karnataka and Kerala was excellent. I had no dropped call during roaming. Infact even in places like Shringeri I had network. During my train journey via Kerala I had network throughout and I could stay in touch with people.
*Quality of network
*Quality of Hutch network is very bad. We have to learn to differenciate between Network reach and quality of network. In Hutch it may seem we have network, but we wouldn’t be able to make or receive calls especially at the most crutial of all times! Breakage of voice and at times it worse than voice quality on a Walkie Talkie. I am not joking, when a plane is due to land or when a plane takes off near my hostel, my call would cut or go blank abruptly! More over even when the network strength decreases by a single stroke the call would cut.
*GPRS
*Hutch GPRS in Tamilnadu is ridiculously irritating. Though its only 10p per KB for using GPRS, we have to maintain a good balance to use the service. Its difficult to connect during peak hours ( I have a samsung c-160 with class 10 GPRS). Until a few months a balance was Rs.10 was to maintained to use the service. Recently I had a problem using the service ( it was my last two days and my recharge was due). On visiting the Hutch shop, he said he refresed my settings and asked me to do a top-up ( Rs.50 ) to use the service. I asked him if the minimum balance to use GPRS had increased from Rs.10. The person concern told me we "now" need to maintain a "good balance" to use GPRS. I didn’t understand the meaning of good balance. What do we do during the lag end days when our recharge is due, or when our balance goes down under the "good balance" limit as per Hutch.
*Customer care
*The biggest minus point of Hutch is customer care. Guess 10th and 12th grade students have been forced into the job. We would choose english as our chosen language and someone would pick up your call and speak "Hutch ungalai varaverkiradhu! Unga peyar mattrum number therchikalama?" (Hutch welcomes you! Can I know you name and mobile number). I am a tamilian and have been in Tamilnadu all these years. But its easier to converse in English than tamil. Its ok with me, but what about people from other states and countries who don’t know Tamil? I think Hutch should consider this a serious issue as customer care is the most imporant neccessity these days. Connecting to customer care is the biggest challenge. The most ridiculous part of Hutch??? If we call more than 3 times a day, our call to Customer care gets barred for the next 25 days. I call customer care once in a blue moon. Recently, SMS plans happen to change in Hutch and I was going on roaming, for which I needed some information about availability of network in the visiting state. Both the issues happen to fall on the same day. I called the customer care 3 times the same day (which was a record in the past 5 years, since I have been using my mobile) and voila!!! The next day my calls to customer care was cut!!! When your network is so bad and full of problems, what do you expect a customer to do?! Not complain and sit silent??? I had to visit the Hutch shop to relieve my Customer care problem. English and grammar of the so called customer care people are worse than a first grade student.. Though your calls to Customer care is blocked, we would receive calls from them asking if we have recharged or why we haven’t set a caller tune when everyone is doing so?! Totally ridiculous!
*Hutch Shops
*Hutch shops are pretty common and easily accessible and they offer you help in all kinds possible. I have no complains about the people working in Hutch shops. They do their best in solving problems.
*Call rates and availability of recharge coupons
*Call rates is the biggest plus point of Hutch! They offer you various plans and various rate cutter cards which we can choose to change our plans or call rates. More over different plan options such as small (Rs.200), medium (Rs.349) and large (Rs.499) offer competitive call rates. I have chosen Rs.349. Availability of recharge coupons has become a big problem in Hutch. As the new age is shifting to e-recharge, availability of coupons have considerably reduced than before. Hence we are forced to do a e-recharge on the day of recharge rather than buying the coupon and recharing it ourselves later. Moreover the size of top up coupons have reduce to small bits of paper. I am young its fine with me. But what about elderly people? The numbers are so small and we need a magnifying glass to do the recharge!
*SMS, MMS and other services
*SMS services in Hutch is excellent. Delivery reports and prompt delivery of SMS are the biggest plus points. Group messaging also works well on Hutch. I have not used MMS and can’t comment on the same. Hutch offers vareity of services but all too costly! But all of those caller tune and mobile gamming freaks!!! Hutch is the network to be! Recently I guess Hutch found it difficult to convince people for caller tunes that it has started a free service of caller tune search via SMS.
I hope I have covered all issues about Hutch. Hutch has a good advertising campaign! Hope they do something soon to improve the network.