India Broadband Forum

deepmohan

Dear Friends,

I am just thinking why cant we use the RTI Act to have information regarding Night Unlimited Plans.

BSNL is providing Night Unlimited from (0200-0800 Hrs) on two plans Home 500 C and 500 C+, in their Terms and Conditions it is no where mentioned that the customers have to reboot the modem or reconnect the connection after and before the said NU time, nor it is informed to them verbally during installation or after that.

The customers comes to know about the stuff from somewhere or he come to know about the stuff when he falls in the trap.

I came to know about this thing from the IBF, not each and everyone will be a member of such tech forums.

This thing shows that BSNL don't want change the way they are working, they don't want to modernize their systems and ways of working.



Below is their tariff and Terms and Conditions:



Terms and conditions :

* Security deposit and installation charges for Landline telephone shall be taken from new customers as applicable for Local/STD/ISD;
* No security deposit for BroadBand Connections upto Plan 500 and for CICs on bulk connections (>25) subject to an undertaking by CIC.
* Security Deposit for all higher Broadband plans will be equivalent to One Month Fixed Charges (but Max. Rs 5000/-).
* Security Deposit & Fixed Monthly Charges for the Modem will be as per the existing instructions;
* Minimum Hire period for all Broadband plans will be one month. In case of surrender of Broadband Connection after one month, the charges shall be recovered on pro-rata basis;
* In case of premature surrender of Broadband Annual plan option, the charges shall be adjusted on pro-rata basis taking the disconnected FMC rate. In addition one month full FMC shall be levied as early termination charges hence forth.
* In case a subscriber joins/ leaves in the middle of a month, the fixed monthly charges for unlimited Broadband Plans shall be calculated on proportionate basis i. e. actual number of days of connection working subject to the commitment of minimum period of hire.
* The customer will have choice to select the modem type of his choice but subject to availability;
* For the customers, who have either procured the modem or have taken the modem under the committed period plan, the modem charges shall not be applicable;
* For the broadband plans, where free modem is offered to the customer, will be subject to that the customer commits for a period of 12 months and pays the necessary charges in advance. In this case, the modem shall be the property of the customer and will not be required to return in case of surrender.
* Home plan can be taken on Bfones in name of Government/company but actually working at residences of their employees. An undertaking shall have to be given by the customer in this regard.
* Subscribers having telephones in the name of Company, firms, shops, educational institutes or any other commercial entity can take only Business Plan. They are not eligible for Home Plan except startup plan 250;
* The tariff of all the Broadband plans mentioned above are in addition to the normal Monthly charges/ usage charges of the Bfone except combo plans;
* The plans HomeFlexi350, HomeCombo199 and HomeCombo299 will be implemented w.e.f. 1-8-2008 only where spare capacity of landline and broadband service is available.
* 20% discount on Broadband services (usage and Rental) to Government Employees (Central Government/ State Government/ PSUs) and to Visually Impaired customers of both existing / new connection.
* The rebate in Fixed Monthly charges will be granted on proportionate basis if the Broadband services remain interrupted/faulty for continuous more than 3 days.
* For all the plans, Dynamic IP addresses only will be given. In case, where the provision of static IP address has been made, No Static IP addresses will be given in the initial phase but in later One Static IP address will be offered free of cost under Business plan 3000/5000/9000/UL3300/UL3300Plus/UL6000/UL 6000 plus and in addition to this, one additional static IP address can also be offered @ Rs. 1500/- per annum under these plans.
* For Broadband plans Business UL9000/UL9000plus/UL15000 & UL15000plus, the uplinking will be maximum upto 768 kbps
* Billing for the service will be included in the normal B-fone (Land-line Phone) bill. The billing cycle shall be same as B-fone billing cycle. Monthly rental will be collected in advance and usages charges will be in arrears.
* The tariff mentioned above are exclusive of service tax.
* All others terms and conditions will remain same as issued earlier from time to time.


I think this will bring a change in the way they work and will prevent people from falling in the trap.

kirankumargb

Yes have already thought of it, but to materialize it everybody has to work hard and go behind them leaving all your work.
No doubt they will have to change the way they are working but it takes a lot of time and patience to get it done.

deepmohan

I see a program dedicated to RTI Act on NDTV India and find that with the effort of one person whole society or a particular locality is benifited so if few of us turn up then it will not be diffictult, the way we are thinking. If they get so many Complaint & Appeal then they too will be compled to do it faster...thats my point.

kirankumargb

yes i totally agree to it.
my point is, yes its good if we bell the cat, but who is going to bell the cat ?

we all are from different places (talking of IBB) we can submit applications in respective areas, so distributed applications will not make a difference. We need more than 100's of applications in one particular place & then if they dont react we can go media, legal advisers etc..

meetdilip

I appreciate your initiative. We need to do something like this. The rebooting is nothing but robbery from BSNL side.

kirankumargb

we need to group up with local guys and try this or we have to send all the applications to the head office, but the problem is the BSNL is divided completely into circles so at one perticular place is not possible i think.

If any initiative is taken to do this, COUNT ME IN

deepmohan

i dont think there is any need to go to media and for a litigation. if one also get it done in a proper way then i think they will be compled to change the way they work or at least will make a changes in their Terms and conditions informing the customers about the fact that our systems are outdated and are not capable to track the free ussage so the customer will ahve to reboot their respective modems to avail the offer. thats it.

ajas.nap

i understood this trap of rebooting the modem only after my usage detail showed usage from 1.59 am in chargeble units.....i lost 400 mb usage for that month only becoz of this trap.if v can bring a change to this system then it wil b great..........

kirankumargb

yes we can do it. I have my friend in BSNL at my place ill ask him why we have to reboot and check what he says. Hope people will be benefited with this.

mickey

dont waste money....

deepmohan

As per RTI Act it will be for whole BSNL full country-wide. It will go this way...

1) Union Ministry ---- Ministry of Telecommunications & Information tech.

2) Department ------ Department of Telecommunications

3) Organisation/Public Authority --- BSNL


This is as per their complaint form.

kirankumargb

what was it intended for ?

mickey

@kk
i meant he mustnt waste his money in RTI and all that.. RTI is a s#it cake.

kirankumargb

oh ok,

I dont think there you need to invest lot of money in sending some simple applications, atleast thats worth a try. If hits then jackpot else will loose a few Rupees thats all. Think of this, if someone else who has a lot of time gets inspired by this and go behind them means...? Its a jackpot so according to me its worth a try.

mickey

@kk

yes a few rupees but a lot of mental shook as welll... ;D

@kk

yes a few rupees but a lot of mental shook as welll... ;D

deepmohan

to seek an information by RTI it costs Rs. 10/- if ur BPL then its free.

as a responsible citizen i think we can do that much for our betterment only

panchabhut

Its a weclome thought.
But please remember that under the RTI Act, one can only ask for "information" not "explanation". RTI Act does not confer the right to anyone to ask the question "why". One can ask who, where, when etc. but never why. Further, under the RTI Act the organisation is only liable to provide information which is already in existance and has no liability to generate any information that was not pre-existing. Neither can anyone ask for any action to be initiated by filing an application under the RTI Act.

So be sure to frame the questions carefully and also be ready to use the information received in the reply in a legal battle through the normal channel.

cupie

This is not gonna be easy. BSNL gets to siphon off a lot of money by this trick of modem rebooting. In case we bring this up as a complaint.The very next day they will include "Limited Billplan users have to restart the modem after the free download hour time.BSNL will not be responsible for any extra usage charges" in their terms & condtions. Thats it..! lol...

We can give it a try though....so what shall we start with?

Cupie

eruptionjoojo

Firstly thnxx a lot for posting such a thread ............... although i have already initiated such a talk in a similar thread before your posting ........... here's the link (although the thread is about plan change){post no. - 21} :-

http://www.indiabroadband.net/bsnl-b...gestion-2.html (BSNL Excessive Bill- Need Your Suggestion)

Secondly coming to the point it's a myth that filing under RTI act would cost much as it's very cheap {just some Rs. accountable depending on the no. of pages (few paisae per page)} i think one can actaully afford that much.

And yeah filing for RTI is just half the part ...............

then on the basis of the information provided one can approach a consumer forum ........ explaining them the whole phenomenon and also showing the information available via RTI ........... thereby proiving his point. then the consumer forum would file a case against BSNL i.e. service provider .

remember to keep all the records intact just in case you need them.

One or the other has to initiate such a doing otherwise we would always remain the deprived lot which always has a urge to complaint but doesn't do anything in regards of the base problem, but instead always tries to find the easy way out.

deepmohan

i was not aware that through RTI we cant ask the question "WHY"....?

Then it will be a litigation there after which will need proofs, so i request the customers those who fell in the trap of bsnl to carry forward with the big bills bsnl gave them as proof.