Bitching about sevice providers

Nokia had put a load of crappy software that I would never require in my 6600. There was a bunch of all demos, so I kept deleting all the software without realizing that I would require one of them – the opera web browser later. I had deleted it, and I got the software from a friend, and tried installing it, but then it was an unregistered version. I thought I would have to pay for this, and so tried to search for a crack on the web. Jeeves took me to the official site, where I filled out a form and explained to them that I had accidentally deleted the software, and hoped that I would get something out of it. The promptness of their reaction was amazing. The next day, I had the registration number in my inbox, no questions asked. I just cannot imagine such a thing happening here in India. Hats off to the Americans for customer service.
The same cannot be said for orange. Looking at their schemes closely, it turns out that GPRS and MMS require different access plans. Therefore, it is possible for them to have a scheme that has MMS only and GPRS only. For someone like me, who does not use MMS, the cost is unnecessary, but I am also straining their infrastructure where they could have made money out of someone else using it, and more people would’ve used it if it were cheaper. The entire package is just too costly, but also necessary. Now I have to shell out ninety bucks a month for GPRS-MMS, and another thirty for caller tunes. Orange sent an SMS saying that they would only approach me with offers that are “beneficial to me.” Make me angry like hell whenever they call. Someone called me in the middle of a lecture and was trying to convince me that a postpaid was actually more economical than prepaid. Unfortunately for her, the entire classroom was debating whether or not the liberalization of the Indian economy will help liberate it. I was worked up not because of the debate, but because I didn’t know enough economics to take part in it. So I talked right back to her and explained to her why prepaid is actually more economical than postpaid. She kept the phone down. Probably was not trained enough, that was a very satisfying feeling. I wish they would just give better schemes, which would be mutually beneficial. If they have a sixty for GPRS, it would be cool. And that’s just the access charges, there is an additional paise per kb charge when you use GPRS.
On the other hand, if I manage to pay this, then I can be online twenty four seven, blog whenever I want to, always have access to my inbox, use GPS software, and really cool things that show compasses and stuff. I will be permanently plugged in to the net.
My mother thinks this is bad news for some reason.
Sify is another service to be contended with. First they have this entire bunch of really cool schemes, and they have a huge inflow of customers. Five months later, they very cleverly changed the schemes, and now we are stuck with the installation charges with little other option than to continue with their atrocious schemes. Initially, I had a nice nine to nine night package which gave me a 128 kbps connection. The only ones suitable for me amongst their new schemes were a all day unlimited 128 kbps one for six hundred bucks and a nine to nine night one, 356 kbps for six hundred bucks as well.
Turns out that I was grossly misinformed, I still have to call them up and shout to them about it. First of all, the all day package is limited during the day, and unlimited during the night. And I opted for the other package, reasoning that we used the net only during the late evenings, but apparently the 256 kbps connection starts at ten and ends at eight. Such unprofessional cheats.
But 256 is a damn good thing, and I am downloading things left and right. I can download around eight hundred megs a night, and I am taking all the music videos I ever wanted within this month. I am cheating sify by actually keeping my comp on throughout the night and downloading stuff. They definitely didn’t expect that to happen, so basically at the rate of 600 megs a day of songs, and 4 megs per song, and fifteen songs an 300 bucks per album, I am making 3000 bucks a night. That’s 90000 a month! Whoa – I cannot believe I am making ninety thousand a month. Actually I am saving ninety thousand a month. Actually, the resale value is peanuts, so this is actually not worth anything out of paper. This is exactly why India should not pursue a liberalist economic policy (I was following the debate, till I was grossly interrupted) because it drives consumers into getting on liquid assets, like CDs, cold drinks, cosmetics… stuff like that. The holdings of things like gold or diamonds or real estate goes down. Credit cards and stuff like that drives people into bad debts. I am not saying we go the socialist way, but… I donno. Things are pretty messed up, everything from mobile phone services to the economic policy of India is messed up, but the American customer service isn’t. Damn, I have been rambling on for long enough.