I have inserted [OT] in the subject line.

On Fri, 2006-03-17 at 00:34 -0800, Shakthi Kannan wrote:

Seriously, the help desk doesn't understand english or know how to read e-mails?

More seriously, the MTNL top level managers are in the same boat - sad to say, I came across one (DGM level) who spoke real rough Hindi and his English was equally bad. You write to them giving every freaking detail (in simple English) of where their billing went wrong and yet they have difficulty in understanding the problem and rectify it. With my experience I would not expect the lower minions to be any better.

1. Any *nix or GNU/Linux system will perform extremely

well compared to a winblow$ system.

IMO, making this point to the lower minions does not help, especially winblow$ will definitely confuse them :)

2. As an ISP, you should let users have the freedom to

choose whichever operating system they want, rather than force them into the environment that you want.

This malaise is prevalent with ISPs all over the world not just MTNL. I am not defending MTNL. They want to make their job easy. Supporting Windows and all it's associated problems does not leave their tech support time to learn and handle other OS platforms.

This is the reply I get:

You at least got a reply even though it may be stupid. My queries to their online help desk, regarding incorrect billing, have been unanswered. Letters to the GM Broadband resulted in arbitrary rebates without and corroborating data. Finally, I have written to the head honcho of MTNL Mumbai but ... I will not hold my breath ... Welcome to "MTNL hai to sahi hai"

My personal experience, of writing to senior management (in India) giving suggestions to improve their service/product, is that they have been largely ignored. My conclusion is that they give a damn about customer opinion/service.

On Fri, 2006-03-17 at 16:16 +0530, Devdas Bhagat wrote:

On 17/03/06 15:08 +0530, Arun K. Khan wrote:

<snip>

...

My personal experience, of writing to senior management (in India) giving suggestions to improve their service/product, is that they have been largely ignored. My conclusion is that they give a damn about customer opinion/service.

Try this letter:

I am cancelling your service because you are recommending Windows XP. Please refund my deposit.

Having interacted with MTNL personnel up to GM level, I am willing to bet it will be ignored :>) Besides, in my area MTNL is the _only_ option for land line service.

_That_ will work, and if they won't listen to that argument, you are just SOL.

If you have the energy (stakes high enough) and the wherewithal, then legal action is an option which I am considering for my specific problems.

"For best Download Speed of Triband , WINDOWS XP and LAN PORT Recommended....."

Well atleast they say it out loud.

Sify has put out a new protocol for its broadband dialer which has been implemented only in its windows dialer. The linux and MAC dialers have not been updated. They have maintained backward compatibility for the *nix dialers so far in Mumbai but there have been reports elsewhere that they have simply disabled the old protocol without updates. Here's a ref:

http://broadbandforum.in/Linux_Client_not_working-t4384.html

And emailing customer care really doesn't seem to help at all as I only got an autoreply.

Siddhesh

-- http://siddhesh.tk