[SirAlec]

we have little choice here in rajasthan. hence BSNL is the biggest one here. Service here is pretty good. and Their billing is one of the most comprehensive one. I respect this because I had a very long legal battle with TATA.\ regarding billing and customer support and dealer behaviors, which I may post later.

If in any state/district your problem is not being heard, please email or call the CMds office. CMD and PRO of BSNL are pretty serious about their services. Your regional DTO or JTO will have a good hearing from them. Only problem is that you will get numerious calls from them from different office to find if your problem is sorted out or not.




Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd.-Senior Officers Directory

[S_U_N]

Originally Posted by Raccoon

Sounds great... wish they would operate in Poona. Upload speed is very important if you are using P2P. You gotta be able to give back at least as much as you take. With BSNL, I'm right an amazing 8 kBps upload speed... beat that?

I have been using BSNL in Pune (previously Airtel in Bangalore) for the last two years. Total outage time would be 5-6 days across these two years.
I get download speeds of upto 250 KBytes per second (2Mbps plan) and upload speeds of 50 KBytes per second.

Overall, I am a happy BSNL customer.

[omishra]

last weeked my broadband stopped working. I have no idea what happened. I called to CC. There I came to know that I forgot to pay bill of March 2010. But this was not visible to April 2010 bill while paying online. OK, after revealing this, I made urgent cash payment at the cash counter. Now BSNL BB connection started within 24 hrs.

It stopped again. I measured SNR, it is 20. I called again. Now lineman does his job after my complain. Line is is clear now- SNR 30, ADSL link is stable. Problem was - they routinely modified my connection socket for solving somebody else's telephone problem.

Till that time someone at server side again made password reset. To find this, I have to make a connection in bridged mode, error code was 691 - invalid username / password. After 2 days of efforts it started again. The concerned CC representative was not having enough privileges to reset password.

Total 4-5 days wasted after BSNL. But they called me thrice a day to find if its solved or not. Now its working fine. This was first downtime in 3 years.

So if works then its great otherwise God save you.

Originally Posted by S_U_N

I have been using BSNL in Pune (previously Airtel in Bangalore) for the last two years. Total outage time would be 5-6 days across these two years.
I get download speeds of upto 250 KBytes per second (2Mbps plan) and upload speeds of 50 KBytes per second.

Overall, I am a happy BSNL customer.

I am having 250Kbps unlimited Rs 750 plan. I also get 250-400 Kbps download and 240-300 Kbps upload speed. I test using www.speedtest.net with Delhi and Chennai Servers. Ping status within 50-100 ms.

[Raccoon]

Originally Posted by kala

+1 to that. Raccoon, before you sign up for these "unlimited" schemes offered by Reliance, Airtel, Tata Indicom etc, just check with them about their "Fair Usage Policy". As far as I know, unlimited isn't really unlimited for all these ISPs, and there's a specific data limit which they consider as "Fair usage" (you may or may not find the actual value buried in the fine print that they make you sign - I'm not sure) beyond which they start billing you per MB.

That way BSNL's unlimited schemes are really unlimited, and as Nirmal said, as long as it works it works pretty well. Yes, their customer support really sucks, most of the guys who attend to your complaints in their call centre have no clue about how to solve your problem and end up wasting a lot of your time - but from what I've heard, most of the other ISPs aren't too much better either in that department.

AFAIK, Reliance does not have any FUP. The same is echoed other forums. Airtel does have an FUP, and bandwidth is throttled after the limit is used. And btw, BSNL's new plans do have FUP now. Just check on their website.

Originally Posted by SirAlec

we have little choice here in rajasthan. hence BSNL is the biggest one here. Service here is pretty good. and Their billing is one of the most comprehensive one. I respect this because I had a very long legal battle with TATA.\ regarding billing and customer support and dealer behaviors, which I may post later.

If in any state/district your problem is not being heard, please email or call the CMds office. CMD and PRO of BSNL are pretty serious about their services. Your regional DTO or JTO will have a good hearing from them. Only problem is that you will get numerious calls from them from different office to find if your problem is sorted out or not.

I have phoned/emailed all the numbers I could find for Poona - 198, the officer in charge of the area, Divisional Engg., Nodal Officer and Appellate Authority. No joy. And I'm almost thro trying.

Originally Posted by S_U_N

I have been using BSNL in Pune (previously Airtel in Bangalore) for the last two years. Total outage time would be 5-6 days across these two years.
I get download speeds of upto 250 KBytes per second (2Mbps plan) and upload speeds of 50 KBytes per second.

Overall, I am a happy BSNL customer.

Are you sure you are getting 250 kBps and not 250 kbps???

Originally Posted by omishra

It stopped again. I measured SNR, it is 20. I called again. Now lineman does his job after my complain. Line is is clear now- SNR 30, ADSL link is stable. Problem was - they routinely modified my connection socket for solving somebody else's telephone problem.

I am having 250Kbps unlimited Rs 750 plan. I also get 250-400 Kbps download and 240-300 Kbps upload speed. I test using www.speedtest.net with Delhi and Chennai Servers. Ping status within 50-100 ms.

Again this will be mostly due to inaccurate testing. Actually, I find these speed test sites to be not very accurate. Just try downloading a big (around 30 - 50 MB at least) file from a fast server with sufficient bandwidth. You will mostly get around 30 kBps downstream, max.

As for SNR, I am currently getting around 8 - 9 and Attenuation at 47! The line has become this bad... but they ain't interested in fixing it. I barely get an upload speed of 8 kBps due to this!

[S_U_N]

Originally Posted by Raccoon

Are you sure you are getting 250 kBps and not 250 kbps???

To be more accurate it fluctuates between 225 and 240 K BYTES per second. (Yes, it is a 2 Mbps connection)
These are speeds with download via http and bittorent protocols.

[SirAlec]

@ Racoon

Please read carefully.
Email or call delhi directly to CMD of bsnl.

[Raccoon]

Originally Posted by S_U_N

To be more accurate it fluctuates between 225 and 240 K BYTES per second. (Yes, it is a 2 Mbps connection)
These are speeds with download via http and bittorent protocols.

Speeds reported by Bittorrent clients are mostly not accurate for this purpose. But I suppose you have verified it thru other means too...

Originally Posted by SirAlec

@ Racoon

Please read carefully.
Email or call delhi directly to CMD of bsnl.

Oh, ok. Sorry, I guess I missed that while reading in a hurry. Anyway, today afternoon I called the PGM (Poona) office (got the number form their Mah. website). In just a few mins. I got a call from the concerned officer (can't recall the designations). Till now, none of the other authorities I called/wrote to could stir him. And he actually asks me: "What should I do? Will laying a new cable on the road make you happy? (obviously he wasn't serious)". I told him I don't care, you decide, as long as I get the promised speeds and no line noise. So I'll wait a bit before doing anything else. Anyway, I don't think I will continue with BSNL BB if Reliance is able to give me a connection... considering their significantly lower rates. But fixing the line will help as I will have to keep the BSNL phone at least for incoming calls.

[Raccoon]

Reliance sales guy visited my place and told me that they won't be able to provide a connection in my building... at least not immediately. Anyway, he said he will get back to me after consulting his boss. Keeping my fingers crossed. Else, I may have to consider Airtel or You.

One interesting thing the Reliance guy told me- he said they find it almost impossible to convert Airtel Broad Band customers to their side. He said once someone experiences Airtel broad band connection, he refuses to touch any other broadband service as their service is that good.

Well, Airtel broad band does seem to have great reviews even from others, though their mobile services are just GHASTLY! After experiencing the swindling and super shabby services of their mobile division, even I feel reluctant to go for their broadband services, though the reviews are good. However, their charges are higher than Reliance and they have a FUP, which are the two other things that put me off.

Anyway, about BSNL, our woes contine. Once again got a call from someone asking if everything is ok... and I of course barked that NOTHING has changed...

And its not just the line that is the issue. The instruments are also very faulty. Just got the instrument changed for the FOURTH time this month. All are supposedly brand new boxed pieces which actually sport "BSNL QA Passed" labels.

Now it seems like all BSNL instruments are made by Bharti Teletech Limited (Beetel brand). Have posted a pic of the latest replacement I got. These are caller Id istruments which have few frills like address book with name display when someone calls, etc (like mobile). All these instruments seem to be of very poor quality. The second replacement I got went stone dead 30 seconds after plugging in the phone line. Others were faulty in other ways. The most glaring issue that these handsets have is that there seems to be some link between the microphone and the speaker. That means you kinda hear your own voice in the speaker while speaking. Also, these phones seem to permanently emit noise from the speaker the moment they are lifted form the cradle (or even when speakerphone is used). If you cover the microphone hole with your hand, the noise almost disappears. In short, it is extremely irritating to speak on these phones.

Some of these phone's bodies are not even aligned right and they actually rock on the table when you are pressing buttons!

Not getting into other defects, but in short, BSNL is shamelessly procuring this extremely poor quality equipment from Bharti even in this era of competition. And Bharti not only has a ghastly mobile service, which excels at cheating and also its group companies produce such abysmally low quality hardware.

And it does not seem like it supplies pathetic quality hardware to BSNL, but even their phones available in the open market are of very poor quality (again, speaking from personal experience)... though they seem to at least be better than those supplied to BSNL. Won't get into further details and make this post longer; but would urge others to take note of their disgusting products (phones, modems, etc).

(Sorry about pic quality - taken from mobile cam at night)

El-cheapo quality phones given to premium subscribers-


The box -


Note the "No GSM Interference" claim on the box. Well, I don't know about the effectiveness of the claim, but the now the phone seems to have transferred the interference to my mobiles, which sound super wierd when they come close to this phone (esp. when they are on speakerphone)! The quality is THAT awesome! At first I thoght something is wrong with my mobile...

[Raccoon]

Originally Posted by SirAlec

If in any state/district your problem is not being heard, please email or call the CMds office. CMD and PRO of BSNL are pretty serious about their services. Your regional DTO or JTO will have a good hearing from them. Only problem is that you will get numerious calls from them from different office to find if your problem is sorted out or not.

Just dashed out a strongly worded rant (email) to the CMD as you mentioned, as a last resort. Today was exceptionally exhasparating - modem not synching even after 20 mins!! No +ve results even after complaining to the PGM (Pooona) office. Thanks for the lead.

BSNL is the pits.

Btw, which one is the PRO's email/phone in the list you have posted?

Reliance sales guy visited and said that they won't be able to provide connection immediately due to cabling problems.

Would be interesting to know what issue you had with Tata.

[SirAlec]

^
Sad a city like poona having such service.

rakesh babu is the PRO.

I got a 2 year old refund of a phone connection security, which i myself had forgot within 15 days. By emailing to cmd and pro.

[nirmaljusdoit]

Originally Posted by Raccoon

Just dashed out a strongly worded rant (email) to the CMD as you mentioned, as a last resort. Today was exceptionally exhasparating - modem not synching even after 20 mins!! No +ve results even after complaining to the PGM (Pooona) office. Thanks for the lead.

BSNL is the pits.

Btw, which one is the PRO's email/phone in the list you have posted?

Reliance sales guy visited and said that they won't be able to provide connection immediately due to cabling problems.

Would be interesting to know what issue you had with Tata.

Raccoon - this is really alarming, that too in a major city like Poona.
My feedback about mailing the CMD, i found no benefit in doing so. After all, i dont know whether the top management of BSNL would even care to go through their mail boxes & reply to each one of them.

A simple linesman solved my problems which a great CMD couldn't do. Linesmen being working level would know who exactly to contact and what needs to be done. There's no rocket science, i figured that its either the wire problem, modem problem or problem on the junction box outside on the road or in the exchange, That's it !!

Im not suggesting you show him some moolah (Like i did) But you could try hunting him down in your neighborhood and try requesting him.

[Raccoon]

@SirAlec - is the screenshot you have posted a bit old? The current site (link posted by you) does not mention his name. There is somebody else mentioned against Customer Services, but as you can see, email is not given. In any case, I just forwarded a the same mail to him.

@Nirmaljusdoit - strange that your experience has been different from that of SirAlec. I really doubt that my problem is something that can be solved by the linesman. The junction box has a rusty connection strip, which needs to be changed, and that has to be done by him. But they have not bothered. However, I tried connecting the wires directly to each other after cleaning them with WD40. There was a slight difference in the readings, but not much. The problem seems to be somewhere in the cables on the road.... and thats what they are claiming. I don't think the linesman can do anything about that.

And yes, this is the situation in a city like Poona. As I'd mentioned earlier, someone I know has had his landline stone dead for over 4 months. Another friend of mine has been having problems with frequently dead phone and loud (much worse than mine) noise on the phone. In both cases the blame is put on the road cables. Many other similar cases.

When I had spoken to the Assistant Div. Engg. he simply put his hands up saying that various departments damage their cables on the road and they cannot do anything about it; and they need permisison from the municipality to dig up roads which they do not easily get. He didn't even bother to check if it was indeed the road cables that were at fault. While it may be true in cases, I suspect they are just using the cables as a scapegoat. In any case, as customers it isn't our problem. They have to fix whatever/wherever needs fixing without excuses and find ways to prevent such things from happening. Clearly, they are not in agreement with this simple fact.

[omishra]

For Pune, I never thought there is such a bad service for BSNL. I am under NIV (BANER) exchange. Here are the events with my recent complain regarding line problem. For line issues - I go there to Asst. Engineer in exchange ~9:30AM-10AM. Get the instructions for lineman from his side(get his number too). Lineman calls within 15 minutes. Problem is solved within couple of hrs.

[Raccoon]

^^^It depends on area and exchange. As many say - as long as it works, it can work well. But when something goes wrong, you will see their true colors.

Still, going to exchange and all is not an option for most people. At least I don't have the time or the inclination.... unless I'm passing by or something. In any case I'v been there and it hasn't helped at all.

[nirmaljusdoit]

Raccoon - Your problems seem to be rather deep to be solved easily :(

Have you thought of the option of TATA photon/Reliance Netconnect ?
Maybe you can take a USB temporarily till your landline issues are sorted out ?