Monsoons are here to make a mess of my daily routine

Sometimes I feel I am just inviting more spam calls when I write these mails. Because most of the time the general response to these mails to the official customer support is that the CTO comes running to me next day making more false claims/promises. I get at least 4 calls during the day… all of which normally comes after the problem has been temporarily fixed. And the worse, I get calls from the head office at times when I am not entirely interested in talking to the concerned people because of the loss of time I had suffered due to the inadequacies of the services they provide me…

Here is the latest mail regarding my net connection speed and the backup related problem…

OK.

After around 12 hours of browsing with download speeds between a few bytes to 2 KBps. The net finally gave up at 5am. The supposedly backup is still not there. No matter what the CTO claims.

Well, let me tell you what he says… He says the backup will start working after around 10 minutes after a power cut. For what? I don’t get it but ur CTO claims to be saying that the server restarts when a power cut happens and it takes around 10 minutes to get that back online.

I have tried waiting for those 10 minutes. But my net has not worked with no power supply in my region since last 8 days now. As for servers restarting… I don’t think its very funny to let the servers which power people’s net in these areas to run without backup which supposedly is happening. And well, I don’t know what technology the CTO cannot afford to buy and make available in this area that can keep my net working when a power cut happens. A decent UPS? Or something more technical? Maybe your tech support people can enquire about it.

I have friends in Delhi who pay as much (a little more in case of spectranet but they get genuine speeds ranging from 10-12 KBps) on Spectranet and Sify Broadband who does not suffer this problem. So this is surely not something that cannot be fixed. The point being… These are the kind of problems that are preventable. Unlike the ones that depends upon mother nature. So, at least the issues they can fix can be fixed.

How would it be like if you are talking to a potential customer and the phone company’s computer restarts so the call is disconnected? How would you feel if that happens to you? The same thing happens with me. I have seen situations when I am in middle of important conversations and power cut messes the things up. Even if I try to get dialup on (which should be pretty shameful considering it’s a situation that can be prevented) it would not be perhaps good enough. And to expect that I get myself a separate telephone line to handle the situations that are caused by the inability of your CTO to provide me a backup of the net services is pretty ironical indeed.

I really cannot complain about natural reasons for the net to go down. But this is something that is pretty unique to this area, can be fixed. So should be fixed. The CTO had made excuses in the past, he makes them now. I am definitely not being unreasonable here. Even dialup users don’t suffer this humiliation. I am on the country’s largest network of broadband network for god sake!

About the duration of the backup. You wont know it, but someone from here promised me around 4-6 hrs of backup. That sounds like a poor joke now. I had be happy to receive 1 hrs of backup. Considering the issue with me is that unexpected downtimes cause problems. If I know my net would go down in so and so minutes, I can plan according to that… And complete my conversations.

And as for the financial constraints that your CTO shows, well that apparently is not my concern either. I did not tell Sify to reduce prices. And I definitely don’t like it if that results in poorer services coz that’s what is happening with me. Seriously, when I buy a package, I don’t get subjectable to day to day expenses that your CTO faces. This is simply bullshit when your CTO tells me that I cannot afford a UPS or I cannot give you a regular connectivity. These are the facts you should have handled before making him an authorized CTO of Sify Broadband. If they took the responsibility, they should face it. I am paying what you ask me. With service taxes. And I don’t have an better option but to chose the pathetic 660 bucks connection that is giving (was giving me actually) me 1.5 kbps download speeds (ironically I could upload data just fine!). And goes down every time there is a shower outside.

Because monsoons is about that. Rains. If your CTO did not know that the rains were coming, how am I responsible? Rains started yesterday… Already my net is a mess. And in the morning I am going to hear the same excuse… Its raining, I cant send my men out. So why the network is so fragile? I don’t see my friends in Delhi go offline in rains. Dialup users do not go offline due to rains. Is the service network setup to make a mockery of the technology you label broadband? Is this what you going to offer us in the times of wireless connectivity that reliance is planning to come to our houses with in 6 months?

Believe me, I know I am not the only one. I am running a successful weblog on Sify since last few months. And the hits and responses and comments and mails I get pretty much present the same picture. The network is unreliable, the speeds suck, the packages don’t resembles broadband from any angle, the CTOs are greedy contract workers. Few lucky ones living in areas with competition get better deals. Rest of us are left to suffer… People in areas with competition have paid 2000 (even less) bucks as installation fees compared to 3500 we paid here. Worse areas are where CTOs blackmail the users to pay extra every month as service charges! I have examples of both with me.

And what we get to hear when we demand services…

You can take the money back, and we will stop supplying services.

Regards,
Sushubh