Another sad Sify Broadband User story
Broadband News, India Broadband News, Sify Broadband March 8th, 2006
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Another sad Sify Broadband User story
From the Indian Broadband Forum:
I am about to post this expose in the same structure to Sify Corporation, The Broadband forums in India as well as the Press. I am writing this article as I feel it is necessary for all the people who use broadband in India (also the ones who wish to go for similar services) to be aware of the worthless and awful service that is provided by Sify broadband.
My troubles with Sify started with the day I actually made the decision to go ahead with their service in spite of repeated warnings from friends who wisely chose not to use this atrocious service and those who have suffered as much as me and have switched to other broadband services.
The connection which I was promised within five working days too wasn’t offered within the stipulated time but I didn’t loose my cool then. However, the manner in which it was installed was as sloppy and hopeless as one could ever see. The broadband is actually installed by the wiremen who have no knowledge of either computers or the technology. They seem to rely on “put these numbers in those fields†approach to get to a level of atleast somewhat acceptable incompetence. Since I was using Linux at that point, their presence beyond laying the cables was absolutely useless since they would converse only in their local language which Sify strongly believe is enough to deal with the customers as the local wiremen seem to be the only contact between Sify and their customers which happens “only†at the time of collecting the lease for their ridiculous service.
Amongst the other specifics, the local cable operators or wiremen thought it was compulsory for me to bear the additional cost over the “installation charges†since the installation charges does not include the cost of LAN cables and their labour. They seriously seem to be underpaid for their tardy and rubbish service.
Now it has been over a month and as the local operators come to collect the lease for their service, they also ask for an extra “service chargeâ€. I couldn’t understand the “service†bit ever.
On Friday the 3rd, my connection finally gives up for good and after calling up the customer support (which they strongly object is not to be mistaken as a helpline). I was told the problem would be solved within two (yes 2) hours. Sounds prompt but I get a call only the next evening at 8pm to check if I am connected. I did as I was asked at 10pm just to find out that the dim-witted engineer (or wireman) actually “fixed†the connection by “disconnecting†the LAN cable. For the next three days I call the customer support just to waste half an hour every evening over their helpless support and hear their worthless words to cheer me up like “yes, sir we understand your problem and it would be fixed by tomorrow for sureâ€, but it takes not more then ten minutes after which they begin to crack-up and start behaving arrogantly with you. Finally after another few minutes of an insignificant confrontation with someone who really doesn’t care (or maybe is just useless for his job sitting at a call center) I finally man
aged to get in touch with one of the seniors at the call center who had atleast the decency to talk respectfully and even called back the next day to checkup on the connection’s status but his attempts to restore my connection too were simply useless after that.On the fifth day of prepaid disconnection, I had realized that things had really gotten out of hand and I needed to get in touch with the manager. Apparently the manager wasn’t available at the afternoon hour so I asked them to provide me with her email address to which they responded by saying, they were unable to mail me because of “internal problemsâ€. Just out of curiosity I asked them if these internal problems were because they were using their own pathetic internet service at work to which the answer was “noâ€.
As far as the Sify clients go, they seem to have a serious problem adapting a standard clean interface in MS Windows which too wont install without first installing their substandard anti virus program and as far as the Linux client is concerned, the Daemon (sifyd) has to be killed and restarted every time you need to login to their service. Mind you, the client does not specify if it has logged in successfully, so irrespective to a wrong password, wrong scheme or no connectivity, the client always says it has logged in (or maybe done nothing since there is no confirmation message whatsoever). So if things don’t work… as Sify believes, it’s not their problem either.
Finally, as I end this piece of writing, I would like to remind you people; if Sify believes a week has less than 12 hours… do not argue. Cause that’s how those morons actually function so that you dysfunction and yes, even pay for it with an extra service charge.
You have my sympathies mate.
Tags: Broadband in India, Other Frustrated Customers, Sify Broadband
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About
Sify’s true unlimited connection is a big big fraud. They charge 1122 rs per month and the download speed that I am getting is 2-5kbps for normal file download. P2P is a not at all possible. I got cheated. I would advice please DO NOT go in for sify as they are a major fraud in the market.
Their customer service is even more hopeless I have till date called them 8 times and sent them 3 emails. They that in their system the problem
Is there a way to make these frauds returns us our money. I mean anyone has tried going to the consumer court against this fraud company.
After reading this report, I feel extremely lucky as a Sify broadband user. I beleive whatever is written in this report; in fact I have read scores of other similar reports, some in mild language, others extremely vile! Before I proceed any further, let me tell everyone that I AM NOT AN EMPLOYEE OF SIFY!! Everytime I try to write anything in favour of Sify, I get wry comments to that effect.
It must be the bad luck of hundreds of people like you, and good luck for a handful of people like me, to be using Sify broadband. I am not in this forum just for the sake of argument, I just happened to come across these reports and feel it my duty to publish my unbiased personal experience, thats all. So much for clarification, now the facts; I stay in Delhi (East Delhi to be precise) and have been using a Sify BB connection for more than one year. It is a 256kbps always on connection, with a 1GB download limit and one month’s validity. After my initial payment of Rs.2000/- for installation, I got my connection the very next day. The partners, two young guys, (B.Tech in computer science), configured my computer with the necessary antivirus (McAfee at that time) and client software and within minutes I was riding on the internet highway. Seems too good to be true? It’s a fact.
Since then, other than occasional hiccups, I have rarely faced any serious problems. On a couple of occasions I did face persistent connectivity problems, and had to talk to their customer care guys who gave me lengthy instructions over the phone to solve the problem. But the problem didn’t budge. Finally I was on the verge of loosing my cool, and wanted to have a showdown with the cable guys. But before that I wanted to have a last try. I reinstalled Windows XP and logged in; to my surprise, everything was back to normal! I was about to fire the poor Sify guys for no fault of theirs. (Bill Gates should be listening).
I am a businessman having my office at my home, so I extensively use my computer throughout the day for surfing and downloading. Connectivity is instant, and without fail.
Recently I was contemplating migrating to some other service provider, hoping to strike a better deal. But after extensive survey in and around my area, I coudn’t find a better or cheaper internet service provider. For information, I tried Airtel, but they don’t give connection in our area; Tata VSNL is more expensive, and another provider by the name of Hotwire is also costlier. MTNL charges rent every month for the modem, or you have to shell out about Rs.2000/- to purchase your own. Their charges was also higher compared to Sify.
So the moral of the story is, the service and quality you get is a question of “where” and “when”; if you are lucky to get a last mile cable provider like mine, you’ll be a happy man. The above is totally my own experience, and I invite anybody to try it out at my place anytime! After all, seeing is believing.
PS. I just came accross an ad from MTNL Delhi giving broadband connection at 256 kbps for just Rs.199/- (plus modem rental Rs.80/-)per month with a data download limit of 400MB. Worth giving it a try?
C.Mitra
i seem to have gone through the same experience. it is very frustrating to deal with the guys who are working on the field with sify. they were completely clueless about the technology the are working with. the services i have received is totally different from what a friend of mine has inspite of living just a KM away.
First of all, let me tell you that i use the net for downloading a lot from torrent websites(p2p). i bought a sify package-1 month 1 GB. After paying Rs 1,800 as installation charges, the connection arrived as promised within a week.
Yes, i did have my gripes. At one point, the connection faltered out, though the engineers helped me out. I have now switched over to the night unlimited connection for Rs 630. It is not so bad. I would like to know if there is any other ISP provider who can offer a night unlimited with a day connection which can perhaps charge on an hourly basis.
Yes i would switch over to some other ISP provider. But all of them(Tata, BSNl, VSNL,Airtel and Of course, Sify) are equally bad. Please tell me about any other good package with any ISP provider. Sify has a 24 hour unlimited connection but download rate must be below 150 MB!!!!!!!!who are they kidding??? Please reply
I stay in Chennai and was originally in one area and have shifted to another. I have had Sify for some time (almost a year). While in the first house, the connection was surprisingly good. Unfortunately the connection in the new house is not good.
The first connection was a 64kbps connection (no comments please, it worked well for browsing) and speed tests showed a stable 57-61 kbps over a couple of weeks. Minimal connection troubles if any. The installation was strange. They had promised to come on one day and didn’t show up, so we called them and then they came the next day. Like Sushubh has said, the wireman did everything and worked on the basis on “these numbers in those boxes” but managed to get everything running fine. I was immediately happy with the connection.
The second one was also 64kbps. It gives only around 40kbps on speed tests and is very reluctant to connect properly.
Like Chinmoy Mitra says, it depends on the area you get the connection and the last mile local operator.
The best thing to do is to ask people in your area how their connection is and then get the same one. That way you won’t have any unpleasant surprises.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the Sify dialler actually causes troubles with Windows. I am quite good at maintaining my computer and the only times it has given trouble were 1) strangely, once after an automatic update and 2) after getting the sify connection. I solved the first one by a fresh re-installation (uninstalling the updates didn’t help :-( ) so the second time had nothing to do with the first. The problem after sify slowly crops up and gets worse week by week.
Does anyone else have any trouble due to the dialler, any new problems in Windows?
Before Sify, I was using Iqara. Service was good, connection uptime was average but the speeds were terrible. However, they didn’t use any fancy dialler, just good ol’ windows networking. Setup the connection through XP, no trouble at all. Connects quickly (when the network is not down). Why can’t others do the same ?
HEY GUYS CHILL N GET THE BITTER FACTS OF FUCKIN STUPID LOW PROFILE BROADBANDS. FIRST OF ALL LEMME INTRODUCE MYSELF: ROX 21, A PROPER DELHIITE. WELL MY EXPERIENCES ARE FABS. ACTUALLY IM KINDA USIN THIS SIFY BROADBAND SERVICE WHOSE COMPANY SLOGAN IS “HI SPEED INTERNET†OR IN OTHER WORDS I SHUD SAY “DIE SPEED INTERNETâ€. AS U WIL LOGIN IT WILL DISPLAY WELCUM TO THE FASCINATING WORLD OF SIFY, BULLSHIT LEMME TELL U FRANKLY N BLUNTLY SIFY U SUX!
IM USIN THIS UNLIMTED PLAN NAME YAU1, SPEED 64KBPS, WAT DEY CLAIMS MY SPEED IS 64KBPS DEDICATED, IS NOT DEDICATED ITS SHARED N MOREOVER I ONLY GET 8-9KBPS IN FILE TRANSFERING. N MOST OF DA TIMES I GETS THE BB101 ERROR, I JUS HATE WHEN I LOGIN. ITS ALWAYS BB101.
CUSTOMER CARE IS SUX, IF U MAKE A CALL TO UR LOCAL SIFY INTERNET CABLE OPERATOR THEY NEVER PICKS UR CALLS N INCASE IF SMHOW THEY PITTY ON U N PICK UR CALL THAN THEY SAY “HO JAYGA SIR†IN OTHER WORDS THEY R TRYIN TO SAY †KISS MY BLACK ASSâ€. AND IN CASE IF U CALL DIRECT TO SIFY, U NEVER GET TO THEM BECAUSE OF THE POOR QUALITY OF SOUND U CANNOT ADDRESS TO THEM N MOST OF THE TIMES COZ THEIR OFFICE IS IN BANGLORE OR KOLKOTA SMWHERE THAT SIDE I DUNNO, THEY DONT KNOW HINDI N THEIR ENGLISH IS HILARIOUS, U WILL ALWAYS SAY SORY, SORY!, SORY I DIDNT GET!U THERE I GUESS U NOT! THAN AGIAN U MAKE CALLS N CALL N CALLS N U HAVE TO PAY FOR THE PHONE BILLS, NO TOLL FREE. FURTHERMORE IF U CALL THE ENGG. THEY R TAPLU-PAPLU TYPES, INFACT I KNOW MORE THAN THEY KNOW ABOUT COMPUTERS AND INTERNET. THEY COMES JUS SPEND HOURS ON REFRESHING THE SCREEN WHICH HAD GOD DAMM! FUCKIN NO USE WITH INTERNET AND THAN THEY WILL BLAME ON LAN CARDS….
GOD DAMM IT I BOUGHT TWO LAN CARDS JUS TO SHOW THEM THEIR WIRE IS OF POOR QUALITY. AND U KNOW WAT GUYS LAST MONTH I HAV USED JUS FOR 6 DAYS AND IM PAYING FOR WHOLE MONTH! SIFY SHUD GET BANKRUPT. OR ANY ONE WHO INTO SHARES OF SIFY SELL IT AT LOWER PRICE , THEY DONT NO CUSTOMER SATISFACTION. IM REALLY DISSAPOINTED.
NOW IM KINDA SWITCHIN OVER TO AIRTEL BUT MY FRND TOLD ME AIRTEL ALSO A SHITHEAD WHO DONT BELV IN CUSTOMER SATISFACTION BUT MAKIN MONEY! MONEY! N MONEY!
WAT YA SAY GUYS REGARDIN MY COMMENT, DO COMMENT!
ROX! N U SHUD ALWAYS ROXXXXXXXXX!
hi
i was a sify user i had a good service from them. But suddenly one day i found the speed is slow and some connectivity problem i spoke to the sify guys but the problem was not solved. i shouted at them. i thought that the problem is with sify but found from my hardware engg that its my sytem problem. “we should check the system also is my lesson i got”