As I yearned to stay connected with the rest of the world, pop came in a message into my mobile phone announcing a ’discount’ offer for internet service by none other than Tata Indicom. Little did I realise that I was picking up a neatly laid bait and eventually end up in a web of discontent, disconnect, and dismay.
Purchasing a Tata Wimax connection was the greatest mistake I made in 2008 for which not only did I pay money for the next 5 months but also earned the wrath of my family members for wasting their time--not to mention the Saturday afternoons that were haunted by the Tata Indicom personnel trying to fix the ever elusive connection.
No sooner was the equipment installed, than the connection failed. Calls to their toll-free number were nothing less than standing in the government ration queue waiting impatiently with a hope that the store owner will eventually show mercy to open the store. Every CS has expertly parroted ’I am extremely sorry for the inconvenience’ said with an apparent robotic voice. WTH... who cares if you are sorry. I must be sorry for taking the connection. But I wait patiently as ever till they finish their parroted lines.
Time loss is something alien and unheard of in the CS of TI. By the time the technicians make their way to our home (clearly attending to other disgruntled customers in various parts of Bangalore) my patience reaches its climax. Drills, poles, antenna, wires are all over the place not to mention the assistant who chooses to comfortably park his belongings on our bed and finally himself too!
"The installation is not right, madam" comes the announcement after 2 hours of research. "Water has seeped into this and so we have to repair it." I wonder if a little water has caused this problem, then what about the thunder showers Bangalore receives every now and then? How does it sustain the rigours of the weather? "Don’t worry madam, it is weather resistant, " pat comes the reply. Now, what do I believe? The connectivity is as reliable as the weather itself. Other reasons in the list were there is a coconut tree next to your house, the lan card should be replaced (although I am still using the same now without any glitches)
This continued for the next 4-5 months and everytime I get the same reply. I stopped calling the CS and decided to learn to rectify it myself. I indeed became an expert in it perhaps to qualify to be in the TI’s CS team. The nearby cyber cafe was minting money big time from me, thanks to TI.
Interestingly, the dictionaries may need to revise their meanings for the words ’post-paid’ and ’pre-paid’ thanks to TI. Although I paid a sum of Rs 4500 for 5 months in advance, the plan is supposed to be ’post-paid’ and I continued to get bills into my e-mail with arrears in bold and red! The icing on the cake was when a CS executive called to remind me of my payment. Who in the sane world would tolerate such insolence?
Finally, I decided enough is enough. I wanted this to be disconnected. Our CS nonchalantly ordered me to pay up for the balance number of days. No amount of reasoning with her that this is a pre-paid connection yielded any fruitful result. After nearly 2 months of terminating the contract, their executives took the time off to collect their paraphernalia. Good riddance!
Half-baked information, lack of courtesy, professionalism and expertise, more than anything else a poor product with a service worse than that maketh a Tata Indicom Wimax connection. Please don’t ever make the mistake of taking this connection. Even if you are not connected to the world wide web, at least you aren’t paying for staying disconnected. Try it if you have time, money and patience in abundance.