If you are wondering why I stopped writing for so many days, its just that there have been too many tickets created in all this while and keeping this site up to date would have meant that in addition to the 3-4 hours that I spent with Tata Indicom every week, I would have to spend another hour or so updating this blog - too much pain!

On the brighter side I have built a number series that can work as an incrementing random series - its a list of all ticket numbers that I have created with Tata Indicom in all these days. The companies customer service sucks big time (ok - yes that was an understatement). The front line agents are pathetic and scripted beyond imagination, the team leaders are either too swamped to address your issue or they are simply too bored with life to take your escalation. The managers are shitting in their pants all the time - they are the wise ones, they know they can do nothing except speak to customers they ad spoken to yesterday and made shameless attempts to reinstate their faith in the "Tata/VSNL" brand!

My understanding of the core issue is as follows...

• Tata by itself does not have the technical acumen or expertise to handle the technical aspect of this business, they depend on VSNL to do it.
• VSNL does not understand the word "customer" there are only hungry, desperate members of the public who will wait for the behemoth to stir into action.
• The combined entity does have the "balls" to play against the local cable operators and in spite of their "partnerships" with local cable operators for last mile connectivity, their fiber cables keep getting snapped out of service every alternate day (at least some one keeps his appointments).

After 4 months of pain, they now act in a consistent and predictable manner. There is one way however, to keep your connection working - keep the Field Engineer happy! No, I didn't have to bribe him - just keep him happy! They know where the "fiber has been cut" and they know how to put it back in shape.

Oh! But don't you dare expect power backup! Now power backup is unheard of at Tata. So if you are in a place that experiences power cuts - you do not have the right to access the internet while your neighbors are suffering in relentless heat. A power backup system, good wnough to support their router/repeater setup would cost about Rs. 6000 (about $150). Given the romantic network design, they would have to spend about 5 times of what they would need to spend if they managed their network spread better. So for my 24X7 connectivity to be always powered up would require the company to spend about Rs. 18000 (about $450). I pay them about Rs. 1000 (about $25) a month. So you see its really not feasible for them to provide power backup.

Of course, they believe that power backup equipment will sublimate in 12 months and no one gave them a calculator that shows how much additional business they could get if they maintained their systems in "on" condition - in spite of the "fiber cuts" and the "romantic design".

Let's see if I can save this post before my connection drops again!