Installation

The first setback in my relationship with Tata Indicom came when I did not hear from them after they got my cheque in the next 72 hours. suspecting foul play and an unwarranted delay in installation, I stopped payment on the cheque that I had issued to them. Now, I knew they would come! Surprisingly, no one at Tata discovered I had stopped payment on the cheque and they never called!
I finally called them on Thursday June 14, 2007 and impressed upon them the fact that they were yet to install the cables from their router to my place. Ah! They recall me applying for a connection and the customer service guys commit the organization to resolve my issue in 10 working hours. Well, it was my expectation that their company, being an ISP, worked 24X7. No, I was naive, for in the matter of providing customer service the company worked a convinient 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM. My fault was that I called them at 4:00 PM and they now had to themselves under the constitution of their organization until 6:00 PM on Friday to provide me connetivity. I was furious at the non-chalant manner in which I was brushed off by the Customer Support representative - but since I had held my cheque back, I wasn't worried they'd be able to charge me for it unless I was willing to pay.
So on Friday June 15, 2007, the friendly local Field Engineer walked into my place to bestow upon me the grace of connectivity. After convincing the management of my residential complex, I decided to accompany the Field Engineer to ascertain where they would connect me from. My second surprise came when I discovered that the field engineer was laying a resh wire from the switch that was precariously placed in the adjoining building. The larger part of the surprise was that this was the very switch from where I already had a wire laid right into my place - for this was the same switch that my Local Cable Operator was using to provide connectivity (however intermittent it was) throug another ISP. I chose to obtain connectivity from Tata/VSN purely because my previous ISP could not provide sufficient up-time.
I took the field engineer to my place and explained this to him. He was very understanding and explained that they had no other option since my connection came under what they liked to call a Cat-A network, where the last mile connectivity was provided by the local cable operator. I protested vehemently, but as was evident I would get nothing more than some empathy from the very understanding but powerless field engineer. I called his "Territory Operations Manager" (TOM). He did not take my calls. I called customer service, they would help only after I had a valid username and a fixed IP address, for installation I should call the TOM. I was furious - but that was all I could do at the time. So the field engineer, ever so scared of my wrath configured my connection and got going.