The horrendous experience of Airtel Broadband.

For the past 5 days I have spent a cumulative of 4-5 hours talking to Airtel representatives over phone. The reason of this being the installation of Airtel Broadband at my premises.

Before I begin let me give a little intro. I have been using BSNL's broadband for a little more than 3 years now. They have been providing great service for all these years however their value proportion was not as great.

A few weeks back someone had tied a Airtel No Parking signage in front of my house. The signage read "40GB @ 4mbps for 1099". This was actually a pretty great offer for me since BSNL was only giving me 8GB @ 2 mbps for around 845.

Since I live in a joint family, landline is used very heavily in my home. I give BSNL anywhere near 900-1000 every month for calls alone.

As of now I was paying BSNL 845 for broadband and 900-1000 for calls which meant a total bill of around 1745-1845 every month. This bill might increase or decrease depending on the No. of calls and the time (BSNL made calls free after 9 pm) but for the most it was always above 1800 no matter what.

Airtel was providing me much better speeds and much more data and unlimited calls for 1200. 1099 for the broadband plan and 100RS for unlimited local and national calls. Taking tax into consideration it was almost ensured that my bill wouldn't exceed 1400 if I don't make any ISD calls.

The benefits of going with Airtel were crystal clear -

1. Dounbling of PRE-FUP speed from 2 mbps to 4 mbps.

2. 5 times more data ( 8 GB vs 40GB) before being throttled

3. Monthly savings of 400-500 RS

I found an Airtel dealer and paid him around 500RS to get me an Airtel connection. He took my address proof and a photo and said that someone from Airtel would call me. I got a call from a Airtel representative a day later on 13.10.15 and he asked me if it was OK for him to send a technician. I agreed.

So far so good.

The Airtel technician came to my house at 3pm on 13.10.15 . Given that my house was only recently built we had built it in such a way that there was a tube for broadband/landline wires to pass through. I asked him to pass the wires for my Airtel broadband through the same passage and he refused. He told me as a company policy he wouldn't do "concealing". Not in a mood to argue I simply agreed. The guy hapazardly threw wires around my house and somehow connected it to the socket. I required a parallel connection and was charged 200 extra for it. While installing the wires he also disconnected my BSNL broadband.

The guy began leaving and I asked who'll install the modem etc all ?. He replied that yet another technician would come in an hour and install the modem along with the final activation. Three hours passed and no one came.

The next day on 14.10.15  I called Airtel five times yet no technician was sent. I was left with no broadband and was burning through mobile data.

I called Airel again on 15.10.15 and repeated the same thing to an Airtel executive for the seventh time. I said how someone from Airtel has come and installed the wires but the modem hasn't been installed. The executive kept me on hold for five minutes and then replied "Your premises is far from the DB box and hence its not feasible for us to provide you broadband". I became furious and said to the executive "How can someone come and install the wires without checking for feasibility first". The executive said he'll raise a complaint for me to which I helplessly said OK.

On 16.10.15 I called Airtel again and explained my situation. The executive I spoke to was not of much help. I then decided to call Airtel's Appealate authority where I was asked to enter my SNR number in the IVR. Clueless as to what an SNR number means I called Airtel again and asked the representative to give me an SNR number which he did. I then again called Airtel's Appealate Authority and entered my SNR number and was finally able to speak to an officer. I explained her the entire thing again to which she said she has raised a complaint and will contact the backend team.

The next day on 17.10.15 finally an Airtel technician came to my house. I knew that Airtel would provide me a free modem however I also knew that Airtel's modem wouldn't be good enough to cover my house. I asked the Airtel technician to install Airtel broadband on the modem I already have to which he gave me one of the most lame excuses ever. He said that "If someone from Airtel comes for 'auditing' I'll be caught". Now I really don't think that people at Airtel are so jobless to come to every induvidual's and check if the Airtel modem is installed.

I told the technician again to install the modem I had with me since there was no chance Airtel's modem could cover my house.  The executive then told me that he'll install the modem I have but I would have to pay him 100RS. There's no other way to put this but he was asking for bribe. I had no choice but to agree.

The Airtel executive then installed the modem and after finishing everything had asked me to confirm my details to the customer care. The customer care told me my plan was 10GB for 4 mbps @ 999. Shocked I said that "no my plan is 40GB for 4 mbps @ 1099". The customer care told me "Your feedback has been taken".

He then asked me to handover the phone to the technician and told the technician "DEACTIVATE THE LINE"

This was the most pathetic experience of everything so far. After so much calling and after finally having the modem installed the customer care was asking the technician to deactivate my line. The technician knew that I wouldn't give him 100RS had he not got the line activated. The technician somehow got the line activated and told me not to tell about this to anyone and took his 100RS.

Today morning (18.10.15) Airtel execs kept calling me telling me that my plan was for 10GB and not 40GB to which i disagreed. Everyone was very comfortable raising a complaint but no one wanted to actually resolve the issue at hand. By 3 pm today my landline and broadband have been deactivated and I have lost hope calling or speaking to Airtel.

I'll have to revert to BSNL even though its far slower and far more expensive but hey "IT WORKS". I have had issues with BSNL as well. For example once a building next to my house was being demolished and in that process the BSNL wires were cut. I made call to BSNL and the next day a technician came and replaced those wires for free. Only thing he asked for is a 'Adrak waali chai' which my mom very happily made for him.

I'm vey well aware of BSNL's pathetic situation and customer care when it comes to their wireless service but when it comes to wireline service their QoS is a benchmark for the Indian wireline industry, there's no denying that.

The way I understand Airtel's current broadband team in Chennai works in silos/teams. I totally understand the importance of teams and the benefits they bring in terms of efficiency but that's being exploited by Airtel reps. Every Airtel rep I speak to tells me "Your concern has been forwarded to the respective team" and what exactly that team is always remains unknown. This team structure also created misunderstandings. The marketing team has put out a 40GB @ 1099 offer yet the sales/activation team have no clue about this.  I hope any Airtel executive reading this takes effort to improve their service.

P.S - I'm not going to return Airtel the modem they gave me unless my 800RS is refunded.