For around 5 yrs, I have been a loyal airtel customer (Dwarka, Delhi) brought up on the cherished idea of reliability of its Broadband Service. Despite being overpriced and Airtel’s pretty apparent apathy for its old customers (for instance, they charged me a whopping Rs. 799 before taxes for the 256 kbps connection when it was available throughout Delhi under the Rs. 649 home plan for months. Similarly, when I requested them for a router with two Lan ports since their USB on 220BX shuts down frequently, they claimed they had no such router except the Wifi model which would cost me Rs. 1500, despite the fact that they were conveniently offering Wifi Modems free to new customers]
Yet, I was content with Airtel Broadband’s lack of errors/downtime. However, ever since I upgraded my connection from 256Kbps unlimited to 512Kbps (Swift 1099), Airtel Customer Service and management have come across as being wholly uncooperative, opportunistic and misleading to say the least
When I upgraded my connection, I was categorically told that the 512 kbps unlimited plan (Swift 1099) is subject to a Fair Use Policy limit at 100 GB after which it would function in the manner of a 256 kbps until the beginning of the next billing cycle. Since, I am not a very heavy downloader I was content with the terms and conditions. My new billing cycle began on the 22nd of February and on the 9th of March [15 days of cycle], I received a warning page that you have reached 80% of your fair use usage limit. When I called up Airtel CC, I was reassured that in all likelihood it was a glitch and I could check the data usage from the airtel site itself. I was under the same impression too, since I was not even using the connection during much of the latter half of February. However, on the 13th, I was stunned to find Airtel redirection page, telling me that I had consumed ALLl my Fair Use limit, and my connection was being downgraded. In all, I WAS BEING CHARGED OF HAVING CONSUMED 100 GB OF DATA WITHIN A MERE 19.5 days. Airtel’s speeds never crossed 60kb/s in the past two weeks and hovered between 52-55 kb/s during the better part of the day. (I assume it is a direct outcome of AIRTEL doubling speeds of a section of its customers for Rs. 100 because of which others are suffering)
All in all, even with top speed, it was almost a mathematical impossibility to reach the 100 Gb download limit in 19 odd days, with a lame 512 kbps so called unlimited connection. (60 kb/s * 3600 * 24 * 19.5) Apart from all those days late in February when my connection, was untouched
When I checked the records for track your usage, it yielded some amazing stats. For instance on the 3rd and 4th of the month, it alleged me having downloading 8 and 8.5 gb of data respectively. HOW CAN A 512 KBPS connection even at top speed download more than 5.1 GB in 24 hours. By the 12th of March I had consumed 93.2 gb of data. By 13th March afternoon, that is within a period of 12-13 hrs, I had crossed the 100 gb line i.e. I HAD ALLEGEDLY DOWNLOADED A WHOPPING 7GB OF DATA WITHIN 13 HRS on a lame 512 kbps connection!!!
I called the Airtel CC again, and everyone was washing off his hands off the problem. Some idiotically suggested I was using multiple computers. How many computers can be run off this modem with a singular lan port? And even if was to use multiple computers, it is elementary that the allocated bandwidth for the connection would be divided and shared amongst them.
Finally, they sent me an engineer who wasn’t even aware that there was a fair use policy in place. He was told to check my computer for Viruses!!! Who, but a technical moron would believe that a virus can magically allow me to transcend Airtel’s capping limit! Finally, after several bitter complaints, an executive admitted that I had downloaded only around 32 gb in the current billing cycle and he would restore my normal speed within 24 hrs.
However, today, I was called by another executive who had the temerity to lie through his teeth, that the limit on 512 connection is only 75 GB and for 1 MBPS is 85 Gb. Lies, lies and more lies as my connection was downgraded on the 13th only when it apparently crossed the 100 Gb limit (as proved by the track your usage details) and any 1 mbps unlimited user on this forum can testify to the mendacity of the latter claim. To top it all, he told me that uploads would also be counted within the download limit (speak off MALPRACTICE) And this one takes the cake; it is supposedly TRAI which has put these rules into practice. [not to my knowledge of course, since MTNL has no such policy] And the same doves were touting their 64 kbps connection as broadband at a time when TRAI categorically rejected connections below 256 kbps as broadband
All this comes at a time, when MTNL is offering a 512 kbps connection at around Rs. 500 pm less than the AIRTEL price without any hidden costs. I am truly contemplating moving on to MTNL which atleast has uniform practices in place, not differentiating between customers based on their location, freshness or their persuasive powers over the telephone!
Yet, I was content with Airtel Broadband’s lack of errors/downtime. However, ever since I upgraded my connection from 256Kbps unlimited to 512Kbps (Swift 1099), Airtel Customer Service and management have come across as being wholly uncooperative, opportunistic and misleading to say the least
When I upgraded my connection, I was categorically told that the 512 kbps unlimited plan (Swift 1099) is subject to a Fair Use Policy limit at 100 GB after which it would function in the manner of a 256 kbps until the beginning of the next billing cycle. Since, I am not a very heavy downloader I was content with the terms and conditions. My new billing cycle began on the 22nd of February and on the 9th of March [15 days of cycle], I received a warning page that you have reached 80% of your fair use usage limit. When I called up Airtel CC, I was reassured that in all likelihood it was a glitch and I could check the data usage from the airtel site itself. I was under the same impression too, since I was not even using the connection during much of the latter half of February. However, on the 13th, I was stunned to find Airtel redirection page, telling me that I had consumed ALLl my Fair Use limit, and my connection was being downgraded. In all, I WAS BEING CHARGED OF HAVING CONSUMED 100 GB OF DATA WITHIN A MERE 19.5 days. Airtel’s speeds never crossed 60kb/s in the past two weeks and hovered between 52-55 kb/s during the better part of the day. (I assume it is a direct outcome of AIRTEL doubling speeds of a section of its customers for Rs. 100 because of which others are suffering)
All in all, even with top speed, it was almost a mathematical impossibility to reach the 100 Gb download limit in 19 odd days, with a lame 512 kbps so called unlimited connection. (60 kb/s * 3600 * 24 * 19.5) Apart from all those days late in February when my connection, was untouched
When I checked the records for track your usage, it yielded some amazing stats. For instance on the 3rd and 4th of the month, it alleged me having downloading 8 and 8.5 gb of data respectively. HOW CAN A 512 KBPS connection even at top speed download more than 5.1 GB in 24 hours. By the 12th of March I had consumed 93.2 gb of data. By 13th March afternoon, that is within a period of 12-13 hrs, I had crossed the 100 gb line i.e. I HAD ALLEGEDLY DOWNLOADED A WHOPPING 7GB OF DATA WITHIN 13 HRS on a lame 512 kbps connection!!!
I called the Airtel CC again, and everyone was washing off his hands off the problem. Some idiotically suggested I was using multiple computers. How many computers can be run off this modem with a singular lan port? And even if was to use multiple computers, it is elementary that the allocated bandwidth for the connection would be divided and shared amongst them.
Finally, they sent me an engineer who wasn’t even aware that there was a fair use policy in place. He was told to check my computer for Viruses!!! Who, but a technical moron would believe that a virus can magically allow me to transcend Airtel’s capping limit! Finally, after several bitter complaints, an executive admitted that I had downloaded only around 32 gb in the current billing cycle and he would restore my normal speed within 24 hrs.
However, today, I was called by another executive who had the temerity to lie through his teeth, that the limit on 512 connection is only 75 GB and for 1 MBPS is 85 Gb. Lies, lies and more lies as my connection was downgraded on the 13th only when it apparently crossed the 100 Gb limit (as proved by the track your usage details) and any 1 mbps unlimited user on this forum can testify to the mendacity of the latter claim. To top it all, he told me that uploads would also be counted within the download limit (speak off MALPRACTICE) And this one takes the cake; it is supposedly TRAI which has put these rules into practice. [not to my knowledge of course, since MTNL has no such policy] And the same doves were touting their 64 kbps connection as broadband at a time when TRAI categorically rejected connections below 256 kbps as broadband
All this comes at a time, when MTNL is offering a 512 kbps connection at around Rs. 500 pm less than the AIRTEL price without any hidden costs. I am truly contemplating moving on to MTNL which atleast has uniform practices in place, not differentiating between customers based on their location, freshness or their persuasive powers over the telephone!
