Airtel IPTV Installation Experience
February 2nd, 2009 Leave a comment Visited 244 times, 3 so far today
Airtel IPTV Installation Experience
In two words, Mind Boggling.
Two people arrived at my place with cloth cover on their shoes. Apparently, they were not allowed to enter with their shoes in customer premises.
They greeted me politely. Introduced themselves.
They had their own newspapers to place their bags on! They were not allowed to place their stuff on let’s say tables or other furniture.
They checked out the position of the telephone connection and the television set. Discussed amongst themselves and told me that the entire wiring process would take around 30-40 minutes.
Then they began the wiring process. Explained me everything they were doing. Were very polite with me and with each other! No shouting, no informal talks. Just pure concentration on their work.
One of the individuals had to make a call to his senior. He asked me if he can make a call. I assumed he wanted to use my phone for that call. Instead, he was just asking me whether he can excuse himself to make a call from his own cell phone!
Whoa.
They extended my telephone wire to get it out of the way without my asking for that. That was pretty helpful.
In the end, it turned out to be a wonderful experience dealing with Airtel IPTV’s installation people. They are going to activate my connection tomorrow morning. Let’s see how that goes.
Here are some photos:
Airtel IPTV Box
Guys had shoe covers
They placed their bags on newspapers they had bought themselves.
The remote is ugly as hell. Let’s hope it is at least as functional as Airtel promises it is.
This is what the Airtel IPTV Box contains.
Airtel likes to call it media console not Set Top Box.
These are the ports at the back of the media console box.
IS THAT HDMI MISSING FROM THE BACK? WTF!
Airtel, Airtel Digital TV, Airtel Digital TV Interactive, Airtel IPTV, experiences, IPTV, IPTV
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February 8th, 2009 at 07:36 pm
Good to see the blog. I hope other Organisation takes clue from this experience as how to attend customers to their delight.
February 25th, 2009 at 06:21 pm
Hi, I had too subscribed to Airtel IPTV and found it strictly OK. For the last two days I am facing hell, with service rarely up for more than 1 hour at a time and then gone again for 3-4 hours.
I guess Airtel has yet to get a hold of this technology and for any prospective customers thinking to get Airtel IPTV, I would only advise them to wait and watch. I have to keep two parallel connections – Airtel IPTV and Tata Sky.
I am holding out to see if Airtel people can get over the teething problems and give us a better service.
February 25th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
have you tried contacting the airtel customer support? what do they say?
February 26th, 2009 at 03:49 am
Yes, infact an Airtel engineer camped at my house for over 2 hours calling up various departments and experimenting with my setup. I heard terms like server configurations, head-end settings, attenuation rate etc. They were tinkering with settings at the very core of the system. Some channels would work, then some would go away, sometimes menu and time shift screens disappeared etc.
Finally, they were unable to solve all the problems and the engineer went away promising that they are aware of problems and working to solve them. Now though all live channels are working, sometimes time shift TV behaves weirdly.
February 26th, 2009 at 03:17 pm
that is a shame really. :(
my iptv has worked well. though sometimes some channels have no sound while others are a bit smudgy.
March 16th, 2009 at 10:10 pm
Really Bad Experience with Airtel IPTV… I have had this service now for a month, but i think i made a really big mistake by opting for this service. I should have waited and compared the quality. I have recently moved from US to India and saw Airtel Advertisement of all 3 services on one package and was really excited to see that atlast someone has started this in India. But did not realize that i had to compromise on the quality of the broadcast. This is the experience i had so far with Airtel IPTV:
Installation:
2 Person came from Airtel and as stated in other thread they looked very professional, shoe covers and all the polite talks… They said they will need to dig the wall from one room to another to take the cable from Wireless Modem to the TV in the other Room. I asked them if its possible to route the wire from a longer path rather than digging the wall, since i am staying in a rental house and might get a penalty for that. They said they have been trained to do that way only. I said ok. They started drilling the wall and broke their drill. So they went back to bring a new machine. Waited for couple of hours, finally they arrive with another drill machine which is suppose to be more powerfull. Still couldn’t drill through the wall. So they called their office and got permission to take the wire through longer path. After 4 hours of installation finally i got the cable up to my TV and they setup the Set-Top-Box.
Set-Top-Box:
STB looks neat and small, but it does not have any HDMI Port. This was already confirmed to me by the Sales person and the Technical Support staff before i ordered the IPTV. Now i asked the installation person why the STB does not have the HDMI Port, they don’t even know what is HDMI Port… Really nice technical staff…. :)
I was really pissed off by that itself and wanted to call the sales man and their technical support center but it was 11 PM and they did not pickup the call. Next day i called the Support center and spoke to all the so called High Level Technical Team, and to my surprise no one is aware of HDMI Output. They have not given any trainning for HDMI so they don’t even know what is HDMI Output. I was banging my head to the wall trying to make them understand what is the problem…
Experience:
I have a Tata Sky installed on my other Room and is running on a normal old TV and this IPTV is running on my new Sony 32 inch LCD. To tell you the truth i enjoy more on my old TV. Its hell lot of difference in the quality of both. IPTV Quality is really really BAD. I was so annoyed to see the quality. Its like you copy a video in small frame size and very low quality then run that video on full screen. Its like all the pixels are expanded and nothing is clear. I think to save the bandwidth they are broadcasting the telecast on really low quality. I wish i should have had taken the Tata Sky Plus and connected the STB through component cable. This is the biggest mistake i made.
Please do not get into the IPTV at all….
March 17th, 2009 at 02:09 pm
i watch airtel iptv on my philips 29″ CRT. i find the quality of the service comparable to zee dish tv at my place which is connected to another 29″ crt. of course, the larger the screen the worse is going to be the quality of IPTV which is not really that great compared to most DTH services.
May 9th, 2009 at 02:01 pm
IPTV experience in one word – HELL
I purchased IPTV when I was constantly bugged by AIRTEL sales people who said please buy, it is free in your current 999 plan (broadband and telephone). As I was having DISH TV which is another problem (unprofessional) I decided to take IPTV and paid AIRTEL rs 4000. The service people came very professionally dressed etc, tried couple of things and installed it. Installation was fine. However after that I am finding that my internet is not working as good as earlier. I realized they have downgraded my internet plan to accomodate IPTV. While the sales guy told IPTV to be free, but it came at a cost of internet bandwidth. On calling airtel they said that they had told me about the bandwidth in IPTV plan etc. Cutting short the story, if I now go to buy the same bandwidth with IPTV, it costs me Rs 400 extra. There is no free lunch and I am feeling very frustrated.
On top of that IPTV is smudgy, has high latency, colors are bad and has a very bad viewing experience. Now I am thinking that I should go to TATA sky which probably are the most professional. I purchased that in my other home at Jaipur and the experience of viewing was much better.
May 9th, 2009 at 03:02 pm
airtel iptv actually has some new plans which would require you to pay just around 200 rupees for the iptv service along with broadband…
check the website out and find the plan that suits you.
and if you still face problems reply here.
May 9th, 2009 at 08:15 pm
Dear Editor, At current level of service, AIRTEL, should pay the customers to watch IPTV not even charge Rs 200.
It is not worth destroying your viewing experience with AIRTEL at the current platform. If they improve the quality which is another year out, it may be worth the plan that you are talking.
July 4th, 2009 at 11:32 am
I Think the first blog is from some Airtel Business Person who just wanted to promote the business. Other who will take all snaps in an oder and also it looks like the airtel guy is giving a pose to get the snap clearly. All bullshits. Do not turst airtel people. Let them proove and of course it will take time india to come up with reliable service.
Do not trust the first blog. Thats non sense.
July 5th, 2009 at 03:39 am
heh. if you cannot believe these photos, feel free to do so.
these photos are from my own home and i am not an employee of airtel. :)
July 5th, 2009 at 04:12 pm
I wondering if I should go for Airtel IPTV or any good DTH service… what would you advise then
July 9th, 2009 at 03:54 am
hi everyone
i am living in germany can i use airtel iptv in germany to watch desi tv channels
thanx
July 14th, 2009 at 02:26 pm
I heard a lot about IPTV, called Airtel customer care, but they don’t give any information about IPTV other than, that you should check if it is feasivble in your area!!!!!yaawkkkkkkkkkk
July 27th, 2009 at 10:18 am
Thanks to all of you
i looged i to see the details for Airtel IP TV as wanted t o have one. But have changed my mind after seeing all thees posts. Will now renew my old DTH connection
August 15th, 2009 at 12:13 am
I am in process of moving to India and thought of getting Airtel IPTV. This blog tells the technology needs to mature a little before prime time…
September 6th, 2009 at 08:30 am
THANKS ALL.
I changed my mind post reviewing this Blog. I am going to buy Tata Sky +. Excellent post sales service!
September 6th, 2009 at 09:59 am
actually airtel iptv has been running fine at my place since the last couple of months.