India Broadband Forum

India Broadband

BSNL stopped the trial offer of ’unlimited download on 16/17 Aug 2005 & introduced ’free night time download’ - ie between 0200-0800 hrs.

However, due to their stupid ’activity log’ system not having the ability to record precisely the traffic till 0200 hrs & thereafter but till 0800 hrs, you run the risk of being billed for the traffic during these duration too, if you session started before 0200 hrs or ended after 0800 hrs.

To make matters worse, as encountered by me, their (activity log server) clock was awfully wrong. As a result, if you thought you started a night session precisely at or few minutes after 0200, you could be in for a surprise (particularly during the first half of Sep 2005).

Yours truly was billed Rs 5000 (on a Rs500-1GB/mth 256KB Home Plan) instead of Rs 1000, for the month of Aug, Sep 2005, due above glaring billing errors. Thanks to Electronic Clearing Service for bill payment, the excess money was gone off my bank account, even before I got the (wrong) bill in hand!

Thanks to their web log (by the way, after my complaint, I think they have become smart, they have removed access hyperlinks from their web site home page - but you could access your traffic log still, directly at ... http://10.240.43.216/webLogin.jsp ...!!) I took the trouble of downloading the traffic volume, session start, end time stamps logged & put up a complaint to their Chennai HO (my circle), marking copy, to the slumbering TRAI & Consumer Society of India, extolling TRAI to review BSNL’s billing system & Consumer Society of India to promote awareness about possible large-scale financial damage to individual Home Plan users of DataONE).

Not withstanding TRAI’s (and the Delhi BSNL babudom’s overall country-wide Director of Customer Service/Grievance for all BSNL services) utter callousness of not even acknowledging (so much for the much publicised ’Customer Service’ of the ’’Director of Grievances’’), BSNL Chennai acknowledged and wrote to me that ’We accept your ’’contention’’ and go by your traffic volumes & we shall be refunding the difference in future bills’. Their pride would have been injured if they had admitted that their was an error in their billing system; they bloodddy well accept my ’contention’ - I was just holding a mirror to reflect their own server log entries!

Being the good old Public Sector, I am sure, even this Chennai babu would not have cared to respond , though a month later, but for his fear that some day a TRAI or one of the highly paid but never working ’Director’ may wake up was the cause why I got a response & commitment to pay me back.

However, the computed refund amount was not taking into account the refund due on account of the 10.2% charges that P Chidambaram levies mis-called ’’service charge’’, without providing any modicum of Govt Service - what?!? employing sloppy babus of TRAI & TDSAT to paper over ’proposals & controls’ for years, while technological evolution is making anything they say obsolete before they say, is the only ’service’ we get for what they spend off our tax money, to keep them in the gaddi with time-bound promotions!

So, the saga of more claims (for service tax differential) is still pending before the Chennai babu!

So, Watch out: 1) take a snap shot of your traffic as recorded in their log-server, verify with your bill received 2) dont forget: while paying 10.2%, even for the correct bill amount, is a waste as it goes to fund Lallu like ministers for them to loot State Fund or disburse pay & perks to bloated & corrupt bureaucrats who kill any individual & private sector initiative, there is no reason why you should concede 10.2% for over-billed amount. 3) incase your session spans beyond the start/end of night time, there is no reason why the proportionate traffic volume computed as minutes between 0200-0800 over total session minutes should NOT be discounted!

Their web server allows you to download only last 3 calendar month’s traffic; still not too late to check whether you have been ripped off!

As for me, while I am happy that the babu has promised in Oct 2005, that excess paid will be adjusted against future bills, till Dec 2005 it has not been effected - to add insult to injury, I continue to be over billed!! The babu’s note to go to a bean counter in this ’’Govt’’ like department stuffed with people who came in not by merit but by Reservation is just to be anticipated; I am still hopeful that atleast my Grand child will get the refund amount, even if I die before they finally act.

Thanks to Young educated ministers like Maran; he did not trust any of these entrenched babu in the department; the whole broad band service as a ’black-box’ was offered to a foreign supplier & hence it is working & reasonably well. It is very likely that a few would have made some money in the process of implementing DataONE through this service provider; on the other hand, I am willing to accept 10% bribery cost on anything from Govt, atleast as long as ’intended service’ is provided to a reasonable efficiency & consistency unlike (for e.g.,) the State Electricity Departments, Income Tax Dept who keep collecting tax returns, never replying to you ’it is ok settled’ or refunding tax-refunds claimed nor disputing with reasons for few years & a decade.

Few educated Ministers like Maran & Private Industry participation/competition can indeed create necessary job insecurity in ’Govt (or quasi Govt) service provider’ to get them to work & not just eat tax payers money & do nothing in return!!

I will be happy if more DataONE customers verify their bills vs traffic & protect their wallet from this ’State Mentality’ Internet Service Provider!! Their help desk, 1-600--number etc are a disguise to employ the un-needed people - it never works; shoot your complaint to the very top & publicise.

Postscript 2006 Feb 20: Good news guys; after 6months of battle & two personal visit to a babu counting beans, I got back bulk of the Rs 5000 disputed (thats damn good perforamance, given the fact that the ’old’ foxes employed in our over populated PSUs are just not accountable to anyone). Go check your bill, download usage stats, discover the swindling & give a hard kick on the backside of your local Accounts Officer; you will be rewarded some day!!

rishi111

can u help me about confruge of linksys router s

cool_techie_tvm

^^ Linksys configuration for bridged or pppoe mode ?

seking

The problem is their server for usage is almost always down and whenever it is working it is not uptodate.

Thrimu

Hello
I too subscribed to the bsnl Broadband.My problem was I hav been consistently charged for the usage that falls in the 2-8AM period...

The BSNL ppl say they cant do anything abt it...

Y shld I pay extra while I am in a free plan...Its all too frustrating.

The bluntly say pay the bill.

I feel its all wrong.Plz tell me whom to complain this to.

Dr.Ramachandran
Thanking You

whitestar_999

restart/reboot modem at 2:10AM & 7:50AM.

just4kix

I spoke to a BSNL officer on why there is a need to reboot modem at 2 AM and 8 AM. He told me the following:

Let us say that someone started a connection at 12 AM, that continues till 7 AM. It is not possible for BSNL to determine how much content was downloaded and uploaded between 12 AM to 2 AM. Since they cannot approtion the usage and separate free usage from non-free usage, they are charging everything during the general usage. A software that continuously monitors usage every minute is not available to them.

__________________

sb21pro

@trimu
wat plan do u use?
if u have changed ur plan,then make sure the change have been done.
use the dataoneusage checker , it gives all the details with jusst a click away, and it uses the portal so its pretty accurate

q123

i was never charged Xtra for the usage that falls in the 2-8AM period...

myusage

*ww.picturepush.com/public/928410

replace * with w

nethack

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There is a very simple solution available to them, that is to reboot the computer/program which gives the connectivity to all users at 02:00 AM, but before rebooting calculate and save data usage details.

but they will not implement it, bcz they earn huge money in terms of fine to innocent peoples.

just4kix

What computer (server) rebooting are you talking about? Do you mean the DSLAM and the BRAS? I am afraid that cannot be done everyday at 2 AM and again at 8 AM. The result will be thousands of connections will be lost at the same instant and server will be thronged with login requests.

nethack

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Sorry Bro, I hv not visited any ISP so far, so don't know abt "DSLAM and the BRAS", but whatever the name of the server would be, if we reboot it then u r right "The result will be thousands of connections will be lost at the same instant and server will be thronged with login requests"
I don't think there will be any problem to the end user, bcz getting disconnected for a few milliseconds(or seconds) dosn't pain as much as a huge fines, secondly since the login name and password r stored in ADSL Modem so reEstablishing the connection is transparent to the end user. and also considering the computing speeds of todays systems, i beleive all the process for all the users would hardly take a few millisecinds/seconds.

However the better but complex(for them) solution would be:-
there must be a process running on the server having all the information about all the logged users, if that process can be changed a little bit such that, at 02:00 AM it should suspend all traffic, save logs, reset connection counters,usage counters ..., then reenable traffic, then there would be no problem at all for any side.

just4kix

In this respect you are right - there is (indirect) cheating.

Did you know that MTNL gives 00:00 AM to 8: AM free usage on some of their plans?

Aku Baby

ww.picturepush.com/public/1462802
i have home 500 plan

//Moderator note: You have not activated your account. Please click on the link in the mail you received from the forum admin in your mailbox. Failure to do so will cause all your posts go into moderation. - just4kix

kinig

Dear Doctor

Try to download between 2:05 to 7:55. Ur bill wont climb up to Himalaya.

kirankumargb

As J4K has told its totally not possible what you are asking yes i agree due to their laziness or carelessness end user is getting hammered... but rebooting or disconnecting and re-establishing the connections is not possible to ANY SERVICE PROVIDER... for people like us it doent make any difference but there are many companies which are running their servers on the connection of BSNL what should they do..? they will bang BSNL like anything....

Just one example HP is running its server in Bangalore on the dedicated line of BSNL with the bandwidth of 300 GB/S yes thats correct its 300 Gigabyte per second.. now you calculate how much time it will take to re-establish the connection and how much data loss has to be compromised 2 times every day...? this is just one company there are many other small companies.... (My bro works in HP so i know it)

Indranil

According to screenshot of Aku Baby Untitled.jpg - - PicturePush
If you downlod the staff from 10:43pm to 1:59AM and dont downlod anything after 2AM and disconnect the modem at 4AM then the uges record shows the data transfer from 10:43pm to 1:59AM.