BSNL Broadband Service Review.

This might be a rather long entry, but the experience demands it.

If you're contemplating on getting a new broadband service for yourself, and especially if the BSNL Broadband service is in your scheme of things, this bit might prove to be pretty helpful for your final decision.

Recently, I had one of the most horrific experiences when a bill Rs. 13K turned up for the internet usage.
13K, IS THAT THE BILL FOR THE WHOLE YEAR OR WHAT?!?!?!?
Well, that's what I thought, atleast. Turns out, that the bill was meant for the months of May and June only.
Here's what I made out of BSNL, its 'saste' packages and its features:-

1. No matter how much internet you use, no matter how much you download (the max would be like 5-6 GB), a bill of Rs. 13,000 for just two months is insane. I set out to do my own investigation into the whole matter, traversed my way to the main website and then to the tariff portion. It turns out that for all the offered packages ranging from the Rs. 250/month 1GB Home Plan to the Rs. 1800/month 10 GB Home Plan, the annual discounted tariff is between Rs. 9000 and Rs. 18000. Still more searching on the net led me to so many cases like the one I encountered, where the seemingly 'harmless' and sasta Rs 250/month Home Plan managed to churn up mind boggling bills.

2. It seems to me that BSNL, with its broadband service, is doing its best to deceive people into its extremely tricky, fishy and complex packages. One look at the webpage which they have designed to provide usage data to internet users removes any doubts which I might have had.

a) When you login to your account, nowhere is it mentioned as to what kind of a package you actually have. Thus, the user has no knowledge as to what the limit is, what the rates for usage are, all they provide you with is a log which enlists all your service records. When you log into the service account, you obviously expect the essential features of your package to be listed there.

b) Ok, maybe there was a fault with the site-designing. No big deal, I'd just make a quick phone call to the Customer Care service, give the details asked for and I'd have the package details in a few minutes. So…I had thought.
But it seems, the Customer Care Service is more of an endurance test for the user. The Customer Care Executive option is the one which people need to use the most frequently and always...the last option. Maybe you can just skip all the crap which the IVRS has to say and directly come to the executive option? No! You have to; you just have to listen to all the options, one by one. It takes about 5 minutes for the machine to finally get to the option you want...And then???
Then, you have another menu; again you will hear the same irritable and slow IVRS giving you details about all available mobile packages, SMS packages or whatever. Here also, you have to; you just have to listen to all of them...Another 5-7 minutes gone. Then the phone rings.....Ah Finally! Err, No! I find myself listening to some music, whichever chart-topper is doing the rounds. Then the message, "Our Customer Care Executive will be with you in a minute" or something on those lines. Its really funny, how much of an effort is made to avoid any kind of direct communication with the customer. Don’t think anyone would be dumb enough to not get their way through to the executive, if that’s what they want. Ok, I finally made my way to the executive, gave all the required details...username, phone no. etc. and then...a pause, more cool music… and finally what I am looking for? No.
"Sir, you will have to call up the BSNL Internet Office for this query."
Oh, Ya! How dumb am I!
Ok... so, on the basis of that referral, I make another call, this time to the Internet Department. The entire process repeats itself again. Another 15 minutes pass by before I manage to get through to the executive, with cool music constantly playing on the background. I repeat my problem, with the executive asking every detail ever so intently. And what do I get?
"Sir, I'm unable to get you the required information. You will have to call up --------another office, another number-------."
Oh wait, I try and recall, wasn't that the number I had dialled first? Ya.
While I'm thinking, the executive rambles the customary "Thank you for calling..........Have a nice day." Nice day? Indeed!
So, is that what this is all about?
Keep referring customers from one office to another, and pretty soon the numbers of all the offices have been dialled. Still no answer. Such professionalism! It’s baffling really, how a simple query cannot be cleared by the people sitting on the "helpline". Even a personal visit to the office does not seem to be enough to get the required details. So, do users have to file complaints to avail the basic features of their internet package???

Basically, there is no point in expecting anything to come out from a call to the helpline, atleast for BSNL I am sure.

c) So, all my efforts to find out, what package I have, have failed. From the designing of the website, it would seem to the average user that no matter what your package is you have unlimited hours between 2 AM and 8 AM, which is rather misleading. No effort to somehow trick the user into using the internet more than the maximum limit is spared. This is where BSNL is trying to capitalize, by somehow not providing the required information to the user, by misguiding them through their very misleading site and taking advantage of the users' helplessness.
For example:
Users having the very "sasta" Rs. 250/month Home Internet Plan have a download limit of 1 GB. Which means each MB costs about 25 Paisa. Now, once you have crossed that limit of 1 GB, this per MB rate increases to a whopping 90 Paisa. On the usage site, you will have 2 3 columns which indicate your total use. Now, which one do I have to see? Can't they just give 1 column indicating what the usage is? No! 'We are so professional!!! We have to somehow take advantage of the users' misinformation.' So, you might have crossed the 1 GB limit, but there would be 3 columns, one showing your usage to be to the effect of 200 MB, one 700 MB and another 1.2 GB. Not missing a trick here as well, very cleverly the 200 MB column has been made the last column, making it look as if that is the net internet usage. It is such cheap gimmicks which BSNL has resorted to in its quest to trick the user into bills of thousands from a Rs. 250/ Month Plan. You will never know how much you have actually surfed, you might have crossed 3 GB, but still the last column would indicate it to be much lesser. Can't a simple message saying that the download limit is over be flashed? The language used to describe each column is equally confusing and seems rather deliberate. Suppose, you end up downloading a reasonable 3 GB in the end. Let’s take a look at the bill which might turn up for that month. The regular and very sasta 250+ 0.9*(3 GB - 1GB) = Rs. 2050. For the 2 GB extra you have been charged at the rate of 90 Paisa/MB adding an extra Rs. 1800 to the preset 'sasta' Rs. 250.

So, ya.. that’s what they are up to. Try avoiding the customer as much as possible, somehow use his misinformation, deliberately not sparing any chance of misguiding the user and in the process churn out bills for a month which could very well have been an entire year’s expenditure. It is a shame to see that a professional organisation such as BSNL has to resort to such cheap and fraudulent tricks. It makes you think that they are out there to fool the user, whatever way they can. Disgusting!

3. There is another thing which I want to bring to your notice. Usually, after every month, the bill for the internet usage of that month is sent along with the telephone bill. It’s been about one year since we had BSNL Broadband installed. Till now, we have always had the bill reaching us on time. But after the month of April, no such bill turned up. Shockingly, it was found that the bill of the month of April had later been included with the next month’s bill, which reached us early June. All this seems to be a little too fishy to be a co-incident. I mean, never before have we ever unknowingly surpassed the downloadable limit and the bills would always come on time. But, the first time that the usage unknowingly sprung up to 6 GB, why no bill??? It seems to me, that BSNL did not want the user (us) to come to know about the package we had. If we had been given the bill for the month of April on time we could have looked into the whole 'fishy-package-matter' and could have atleast done something to avoid a bill of Rs. 7000 for May. Too fishy to accept all of this as a mere co-incident. Thus, a Rs. 13,000 bill for 2 months April and May turned up.

So, before you plan to take up any package, make sure that you completely understand what the provisions, rates and terms for the particular package are. Because...believe me, these 'ever so professional' organisations are out there to make a fool of you!!!